The Greatest Place On Earth

After all our Christmas festivities, we took the girls for a walk on the beach. The tide was really high so weren't able to do a lot of walking. Still, the girls were able to enjoy the fresh ocean air despite being bundled up and sleeping through the entire walk. Perhaps they can take in the sights on our next walk.

Ready to head down to the beach.

The tide was sooo high that there were extra little rivers making it impossible to walk very far.

Zadie stayed nice and warm with Mom.

Lia stayed cozy with Dad.

Our First Christmas

We had a lot of fun spending our first Christmas in Oregon. There were a lot of people that we had not yet met, so we were passed around and held a lot--we won't complain about being held! We also spent a lot of time having our pictures taken. While we won't both smile at the same time on command, we tried our best to cooperate. 

Our airplane landed in Portland at 1:00 in the morning. Of course, we didn't know the difference, but Mom and Dad were both pretty tired when G-ma and Papa met them in the airport. When we arrived at G-ma and Papa's house, our Great Grammy was waiting to meet and hold us. Mom and Dad didn't get to bed until about 4:00 am, which was 6:00 am Texas time. Oh well, we've trained them to function well on very little sleep. The next morning we all got up and had family photos taken. I got to meet all of my cousins, and they all got to hold me.

Here we are with Mom and Dad on our first Christmas.

Audrey wants to be a babysitter when she grows up. Lia gave her some good practice.

Even LuLu wanted in on getting to hold us.

Just the girl cousins.

All the Gerig cousins.

Lindsey and Lia--all dolled up.

We finally finished pictures and got to relax for the afternoon. It was a cold and windy day, so Lia and I stuck around the house and cuddled with everyone. The big kids had to go to the church for play rehearsal. That evening, everyone came back home and we had China Faith for dinner and opened presents. Mom and Dad told us that China Faith was an important place for us because that's where they announced that they were pregnant back in the Spring--but they didn't know there were two of us back then. Anyway, we had a lot of fun watching all the hustle, but we fell asleep before we got to open anything.

Lindsey helped pass out presents.

Rhett ate the presents.

LuLu organized the presents after they had been opened.

Audrey delivered presents.

Alex kept us all in line.

Uncle Jim, Auntie Jess, and Rhett.

Audrey's new book.

Lia's present from Great Grammy--a locket with her name on it.

My present from Great Grammy--a locket with my name on it. Grammy says we're supposed to put a picture of our boyfriends in it. Mom says boys are bad.

And this is how we spent most of our time amidst all the present opening.

Here we all are again! We love our cousins!

Once the presents were over, the big kids took their baths. We then had a whole new photo shoot wearing the matching PJs from G-ma. Poor Audrey was VERY upset because our cousin Lucy took her blanket. LuLu didn't want to give it up. So Audrey and I pitched a fit. You can see that LuLu was sitting in these pictures gloating with the blanket under her legs.

See how mad Audrey and I are while LuLu sits there with that smug look on her face?

Then, Audrey managed to calm me down. This made her much happier, and everyone forgot about the silly little blanket.

LuLu even decided to give Lia a kiss.

Audrey has a special way of making me happy--it must be because we both had weird belly buttons when we were born. We have a special bond. :)

Just the boys--we have them outnumbered, big time!

Lindsey and Lia had a good time together.

After awhile the adults all left us alone. Rhett was in charge. We laughed at his goofy hat, but he took good care of us. Next year, we'll give him a run for his money--two on one.

We decided to practice our synchronized swimming routines while no one was watching. Rhett was trying to teach us how to frog-kick. I guess two extra months give you some special talents that we don't have quite yet.

I was pretty happy playing with Rhett's babysitting skills, but I think we wore him out--he looks a bit overwhelmed. 

The next day, we woke up to go to church. We put on our nice dresses again. Our cousins held us during church and taught us how to stay real quiet. We were very well-behaved during the service as always. 

On Christmas Eve, we watched White Christmas--a Gerig tradition. Grammy got so comfortable holding Lia that she fell asleep. It seems we have that effect on people.

That night, the Toroks and Sloans came over for dinner. We enjoyed the smells of a ham dinner and once again got passed around.

Auntie Mary thought we were pretty cute.

Our cousin, Malia was pretty proud that Lia's name was very similar to hers.

On Christmas Day (which happened to be the first day we both slept all the way through the night at the same time), all the cousins came over again for turkey dinner. Auntie Katie had to work, but we still had a pretty great time with everyone. Audrey practiced her babysitting skills some more and is really good at calming us down. In fact, she sang to me a couple times which worked very well.

After Christmas dinner we headed to the beach where we got to spend time with Nana and Grandpa Jensen. We relaxed and watched movies together.

The two of us woke up each morning around 6:30. After our feeding, we'd fall back asleep together on Mom and Dad's bed. They kind of like this new sleep routine we've got.

Nana and Grandpa were good at cuddling with us.

All in all, we had a great first Christmas and are excited to be a little more present for it next year!

Flying with Twins

A few things we learned while flying with twin 13-week-olds:

1. Take the minimum amount of "stuff" possible. If possible, avoid taking strollers on the airplane. Carrying the girls with a Moby Wrap and an Ergo worked out just fine and made for easier getting around the airports. The TSA folks were very "family friendly," and we didn't even have to take the girls out of their wraps.

2. Have extra outfits for the babies and yourself in the carry-on. We had an extra outfit for the babies, but K got to wear his poop-smeared shirt for the entire trip. Thanks, Lia for having your biggest blow-out just as we arrived at the gate before leaving in Dallas. It could have been much worse--she could have blown out ON the airplane, making for a very difficult diaper change. Nonetheless, we left home in cute, festive outfits, but Lia was in footy pajamas before we even left Dallas. See pics below.

Here are the outfits we were wearing when we left home.

Here are the outfits we were wearing when we left Dallas--post blow-out.

3. Family boarding is not really early boarding. They board all of the people who paid extra money for their boarding passes first. After about 45 people have boarded, the families get to board, which really doesn't do much in terms of seat selection. We wanted so badly to go sit right next to a bunch of the "business-class" members just to be spiteful...but we didn't.

4. There are only 4 oxygen masks in a row. We learned this because our first flight attendant was doing her best to help us sit together. We could either sit in two aisle seats, or hope that the flight had an extra seat or two and have one of those empty seats be in our row. Lucky for us, both flights had an extra seat--which was right between us, making for a very comfortable flight.

5. Feed the babies at take-off and landing. I don't think this is a secret, but it worked well.

6. Smile and give treats to those around you. See pics below. While we had planned for the worst, we found that our lives will be much more difficult on airplanes in the next few years so we need to enjoy the easy flights now and save the "we're sorry" treat bags for when we have toddlers.

7. Don't plan on reading or doing anything on the plane other than sleeping and holding babies. We can't complain too much about this, as they were pretty sweet babies during the entire flight with only a tiny bit of fussing.
8. Jetlag and timezones don't seem to affect the babies nearly as much as it affects us. In fact, the timezone change may be just the thing that got both girls sleeping all the way through the night at the same time.
9. The anticipation, planning, and packing for the flight is much worse than the actual flight itself.

A few of our favorite things

- When Lia sighs in your arms.
- Zadie's whiney cry (heh heh heh heh heh) when she is mildly protesting or upset about something. Cutest thing ever.
-Lia's lower lip just before she cries sometimes sticks way out and we feel borderline abusive when we try to take a picture rather than comfort her.
- Zadie's high-pitched protest when you wake her up or move her when she doesn't want to move. Short little scream.
- Lia's contented sounds when she eats--mmm mmmm mmmm mmm.


http://youtu.be/YIFvyb9VU4A

-Zadie's disgruntled look when she is being burped (she's growing out of this now).
-Cute baby bottoms at bath time--and wet babies wrapped in a towel.
-Zadie's sounds when she is attacking her pacifier.

http://youtu.be/7dJX9WfNEr0

-When they hold hands.

Smiles for Daddy

Lately, Zadie has been all about Dad. While she'll cuddle with anyone, she has been extra generous with her smiles and cooing for Dad as well.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5HCCkbCD8Q

Bath time

We love bath time! Daddy gets us ready for our baths. We get to sit in our birthday suits for just a minute, which we love, but sometimes Daddy gets the timing off and we squirt him or Mom just a bit. It's pretty funny! Mama always gets nice warm water with bubbles and washes us from head to toe in the Puj Tub. She always dumps some water over our heads which is a bit startling but kind of nice too. Our favorite part is getting wrapped up in the nice warm towels after the bath. We usually give lots of coos and smiles then. We can't wait until we get to take baths together in the big tub. We'll get to splash and have so much fun!

Smiles

Zadie started smiling over the weekend. She has become quite the heartbreaker with her cute little smile now and is relatively generous with her grins. Lia looks so close to smiling as she flaps her arms and smiles at us with her eyes, but still nothing that resembles a real true smile just yet.