playing!

I feel like I could post thousands of photos of the girls lately because they are doing so many new and cute things! We have had a lot of playdates this week which has been really nice for all of us! To have the girls around other kids and to get to spend some time with other adults is great! We have made friends with the other "medical widows" of the CT Anesthesia Program and we have made friends with two other sets of g/g twins. One set is identical and now I see how hard it IS to tell identical twins apart until you get to know them better! We have had a great week, again, just hanging around home!

Aparently something was really funny ...

I realized that I don't think I have posted a picture of Meredith walking ... they are both all over the place walking now which is really cute!

Still, even though she can walk, she loves to push ANYTHING ... she is obsessed!
Hannah would eat cookies all day ... and I have been bad about letting her since the last weigh in was not too good!
So, I had the girls' travel highchairs out because we had a few other kiddos over here for dinner the other night and I have just been lazy and left them out. I heard Meredith fussing while I was in the kitchen and I find her like this ... she had climbed in all by herself then gotten stuck! Ha ha! And here is Hannah, again, with food! I'm trying to get her to eat more though I am probably not giving her very good eating habits!
Meredith slept later than Hannah for her first nap the other day and I was trying to "help" her wake up by leaving the door open and making a bunch of noise ... I even took her photo with a flash and she slept right on through! Looks like she may be wanting to start sleeping with a pillow ;) She looks pretty comfy on bear there!

Their FAVORITE thing to do these days is to run around under the kitchen table laughing and squealing at each other!

They have this little refrigerator toy that has magnets and they spent, literally, half an hour throwing them around the room. They would throw it then go get it, then throw it again ... it was nice to be able to watch them play together without fighting and without me having to intervene!
Their second favorite thing to do is READ BOOKS! Hannah will flip through 10 books all on her own sometimes! She is always bringing them to me or stacking them in the rocker since that is where we usually read ... it is too cute!

girly girls and unlikely toys ...

Since we have been such busy bees, the girls and I have been laying low and playing at home a lot the past few days! Here are some of our goings-on ...

So, a lot of times, I let the girls play a bit before going in to get them up from their naps. They seem to enjoy it as I hear them laughing and squealing at each other in the baby monitor. This day, I had put them down without their little "sleep sacks" because they were in pants and I didn't want them to get hot. Here is what I find when I go in to get Hannah up ...

... she had taken her pants off and thrown them in the floor with her blanket and binky. I guess she was ready to get up AND I guess that I should be glad there wasn't a poop diaper down there too!
Grammy and Granddaddy Finley took the girls off my hands one morning as they were fussy and they are good about making sure that I don't go bonkers! They walked around in their PJs outside for a good bit and it was a nice break for me! I liked this picture!

I may be bound for girly girls ... which is OK by me ... not so sure how Alan will feel about that ... for a whole morning, Hannah walked around with my little purse in one hand and my sunglasses in the other like she was about to hop in the car and hit the mall ...
and Meredith did the same with my wallet and lipgloss!
Gross ... I guess this is the risk you take when you have a dog in the house! If I forget to put up the dog food, this girl will eat it in a skinny minute! She is my picky one ... but dog food ... bring it on?!?!?!? Crazy girl Hannah! I did take the yucky dog toy out of her hands right after the photo! I will be glad when they learn "yucky!"
To Meredith, EVERYTHING is a push toy. She will push anything that is not bolted down across the room ... and MAN does she get mad when it hits a wall or gets stuck on the rug ... well, she was using her music table as a push toy the other day and kept stacking things on top of it and pushing them around the room. At one point, it had my tennis shoe, her blanket, and the camera on it ... that afternoon, she attached herself to my tennis shoe and walked around holding it by a shoelace or pushed it around on that table like it was her baby doll! She has also gotten the nickname monkey because she loves to climb on things. She is always climbing on her chair, on top of their picnic table, or trying to scale the gate I have up to keep them off my elliptical trainer ... oh, I'm going to have to watch that one! She is pretty careful though, so that is a plus! Here she is standing in Hannah's chair holding on to her prized possession!

busy girls!

We have been very busy the last few weeks! We had a late birthday party for the girls and have had company, company and more company, went to the Aquarium, AND had a Pediatrician visit! The birthday party was great and it was so fun to have so many people that we love all in the same place! The appointment went as well as a 12 month appointment can go (shots!) and they are napping it off right now. They are deemed healthy but still teeny. Hannah weighed in at 16 pounds 1 ounce (<5%), 27 inches long (<5%), 17 inch head circumference (25%) and Meredith was 16 pounds 7 ounces (<5%), 27 inches long (<5%), and 17 inch head circumference (25%). I guess they have what their cousin Jackson would call "big melons"! It must be all the brains they got from my side of the gene pool (ha ha). The Pediatrician said to count on them being in the rear facing infant seats until they are 2! She said that at least they have each other to look at back there!

Aunt Sarah and Grandmama playing with bubbles!

The girls were lucky to have two sets of Grandparents in the same place! The Finleys and their other Aunt Sara came to spend the weekend and spoil us!
Aunt Tricia and Aunt Sara gave the girls these pink push cars. As you can see, Meredith took right to it!
I can already tell who will be my more cautious driver! There are no two better pictures to capture the difference in the girls' personalities!
Hannah and Alan at the Aquarium (where you can't use flash)

Meredith and Mommy
Hannah and Mommy
The girls didn't seem to like the Aquarium as much as the zoo, but it may have been because it was so crowded that it was hard to get to see anything ... maybe we will go back on a weekday!
The birthday lunch

birthday cake #3
Meredith
Hannah
watching Granddaddy Wright work outside

Hannah and Mommy at the neighborhood lake feeding the ducks

Fernbank, again!

We went back to Fernbank Museum of Natural History while the Whitakers were here. We had a good time though poor Grayson got a little jipped as he could have stayed much longer but we were losing all the babies to fussiness (naptime!)

Meredith and Mommy looking in the fantasyland mirror

Whew, glad these aren't all mine!
Hmmm, what is in here? Can you tell who this is? Her toosh gives her away!
Here is Hannah walking on the penguin tracks and Meredith still just can't let go! I know it is just a matter of confidence for her!
"picking" stuffed vegetables is super fun!
"pollenating" the flowers was so fun, too ... so much that they wouldn't look at Mommy for photos!

Zoo Atlanta!

My sister and her family are in town so we took the boys and girls to Zoo Atlanta today. A GREAT time was had by ALL! Hannah especially LOVED the animals ... future veterinarian?? They happily let us cart them around and around until Meredith happened upon a neat trick as you will see ...

Meredith, cousin Brayden (13 months), and Mommy petting the goats

Meredith, Grayson (6), and Landon (4) checking out the giraffes. I liked this picture in how cool animals can keep such different aged and just DIFFERENT kids happy!
Meredith
Hannah walking again ... she is getting good! Cousin Brayden pushing the wagon.
So, here is the neat trick Meredith happened upon ... and after that, there was no carrying her or strolling her IN the stroller ... not even with cookie bribes! Things got a little slower going ... though she is a strong little thing, here she is pushing UP a hill all by herself (I stepped away to take the photo and thought she would just stand still ... NOPE!) and let me tell ya, that is not a light stroller ... don't judge a book by its teeny tiny cover!
If Hannah had been 2 or so she would have been saying "oh my gosh, Daddy, look at this ... oh my gosh, look at that ... but look at THIS ... but what is THAT!" Alan said it best when he said she was "eyes WIDE open" the whole almost THREE hours we were there!
Petting the goats with Cousin Grayson. The goats all looked fat and lazy like they just ate Thanksgiving dinner!
Meredith shared the wealth of neat trick knowlegde with her sis ...
Alan and Meredith cheesin' it up!

having fun ...

My two college roomates were in town and we took all of our combined SEVEN kids to Leapin' Lizards ... the kids had a blast and somehow I didn't get any photos of the adults ... life is definately different than it was at CofC 10 years ago!

The girls had fun in the bouncy play area for a few minutes, but then they got mad that it was too hard to stand up in there ... they have a single minded focus these days ... WALKING!

Meredith
I leave this cabinet with all kinds of fun (and safe) things to pull out and bang on the floor ... the contentment only lasts for a few minutes because Hannah finds clean cups or cup lids and gets super mad that she can't get anything to drink out of them and Meredith usually ends up getting the cabinet door closed on her (we won't name any names on who does the closing ...) and I end up with two girls crying and reaching for Mommy ... I have been known to prop the door and fill ten cups with water ... JUST to get some dishes washed!
The girls have two passions these days ... #1 is playing "I'm gonna get you/get your tushy back here" ... if you say either one of those things they go crawling as fast as they can away from you and laughing and squealing ... #2 is playing on Mommy and Daddy's bed or in the crib with each other... they will stand up and flop down on their backs or tummies and have a good time snuggling with our pillows ... or roll around and wrestle in the crib with each other ... they love it ... they will bang their heads on the crib or steal pacis or loveys and think it is hilarious?! ... if they did that in the "real" world, they would have meltdowns! it is too cute ... here they are wrestling ... and proof that they weren't even mad about it!