A couple of clowns

The girls are almost 17 months old and are tons of fun. They're learning something new every day, so here's a few of the highlights that come to mind while writing this.

Above is a picture of the girls goofing around just before bed. One always tries to do what the other one is doing, and that night they were having a "hanging upside down" competition, which later turned into a head shaking competition, and then a jumping up and down competition. I eventually had to just say good night and leave them to their fun. They ended up jumping around, giggling, and screaming for another half hour before finally falling asleep.

Bath time is also tons of fun, but be prepared to get wet if you sit in the front row. Splash competitions! And they don't hold anything back. But it's hard not to laugh along with them when you see the giggle fit they get into when they're splashing.

Usually, when I get home, the girls get excited and try and climb the gate at the top of the stairs. Lately, they've also been adding a couple of twirls, mixed with screams and hand clapping. And today, when I got home, Naomi even did a little dance. Over the previous weekend I was able to catch some of their sweet dance moves on video.

More excitement to come! :)

Independence!

The girls are declaring independence!!  Lots of big changes are happening again.  I love it!  Just recently, they started understanding what Rick and I are saying!!  I have no idea how it started, it just happened in a span of a couple of weeks.  For example, if I say its time's up to eat, they start heading to their highchairs.  They also understand where their toes, ears, belly buttons are :) I love these changes.  I told Rick that the next two steps I'm looking forward too are: 1) they can go downstairs by themselves (they are getting way too heavy!!) 2) they can feed themselves

During their 15 month check up, they are average in height and weight BUT they are 97th percentile in head sizes.  So my girls have GIANT heads.  I expect big brains :)

As for eating, I'm getting super excited that they are eating more adult food.  Its a huge step for me since they throw up so easily when they don't like something...I think they are starting to grow out of it :)  They ate lasagna last night (and a portion size equivalent to an adult each) plus vegetables plus congee, WOW.  Rick has been doing a great job introducing new foods while I've been on travel, he's a great father and 'mother' while I'm away.  I'm very lucky.

Here are a couple of videos showing their independence!

Christmas Holidays!!!

 
 


We all flew home to Regina for the Christmas holidays.  The girls had a great time visiting their grandparents, uncle, aunt and close friends.  They also attended a great party at Lee's Chop Suey, celebrating my brother's marriage.  Although the focus of the party should have been on my brother, unfortunately, the girls stole the show as usual.  They loved toddling around the restaurant, batting their eyes at all the guests, saying hi and giggling.  They were having so much fun they didn't want to leave.  We had to drag them away from the restaurant.

The girls also loved spending an afternoon at Dino Bounce (a gym full of inflatable castles).  They loved going down the slide, and falling all over the place, but not getting hurt.  And mid way through their time there, they learned how to break free from the castle and roam around the place, chasing after other kids and butting in line.

Before leaving for holidays we took this video of the girls and their new hats:



And here's a video of the girls just before going to sleep on Christmas eve:

14 Months Old - Fully Weaned

Keira and Naomi are full fledged toddlers!  This stage is sooo much FUN!!  They get so excited just walking back and forth from the kitchen to the living room, blabbing and laughing.  I love watching them.  This is by far my favorite stage!!  They flap their arms like wings when they walk too and make each other laugh.  AND they are learning to share :)  They give each other toys, and don't fight as much. Here's a video of them doing their daily routine of walking:

Recently, they had their first hair cut.   It started with me doing a bad job of cutting their bangs.  Rick made an immediate appointment with a kids salon, he was so concerned with how the girls looked, wow! I've never seen him take  initiative so fast in my life!!

They are also fully weaned too!  It was time, they weren't interested anymore so it made sense and worked perfectly timing wise with me travelling up north for a week.  Rick did an excellent job of taking care of them and putting them to bed by him self.  He's a super dad!  

The girls have been vomiting a lot recently and I think its because I've been overfeeding them without realizing it. I still spoon feed them but I'm much more cautious now.  They girls are eating more and more table food, which makes life a lot easier!  They are also still on the chubby side despite the tremondous amount of vomiting, I have no idea how they still gain weight...Naomi is 22.5 lbs and Keira is 21.5 lbs :)  

My sister recently had to travel back home after an excellent extended visit to Ottawa. I've been super lucky to have all this help since I've been back to work!  AND I can't believe Rick is going to be off for almost two months very soon!  I'm soo jealous because the girls are extremely fun right now!!!

Our girls have happy feet!

When the girls were only a few months old, we discovered that they got excited every time we showed them the penguins from Happy Feet (the movie). The other day, we showed them this video of baby Mumble tap dancing to some Stevie Wonder:

They loved it and started screaming and jumping around. After many repeat plays, they started to slow down, but we managed to catch them in the act.

Halloween and Santa Claus

Santa helpers!

Its been a very busy last month!  Alot has changed with the girls of course, they both walk now!  They took their first steps shortly after turning 12 months old and now Naomi is almost a pro at walking.  She started really walking in the last couple of weeks.  Keira is more cautious but almost there :)

Who am I?

The girls had a super busy halloween weekend!  They went to halloween party, went to the mall, then trick & treated around the neighbourhood collecting two huge overfilling pails.  Naomi and Keira got the hang of standing at the door and holding their pails up for candy.   Rick and I had a great time eating all the candy :)

Partying with 12 other kids!

Hanging out at the mall with their twin best friends

Its been super great weather, but I still bundled the girls when they are outside, here's a cute picture of them enjoying the fall weather.

Since I started working, time has flown by sooo fast! I can't believe the girls are turning 14 months old very soon!  I've decided to fully wean them at 14 months old using travel as an excuse.  It will be my first time time away from the girls overnight!  Rick is going to take care of them, I think he will do a great job!

I'm sure everyone is looking forward to all the videos rather than reading this blog, so here's a few cute videos of them toddling and FIGHTING of course, enjoy!

Remembering the Pug

Our blog is a great way for us to share our latest news with friends and family.  At the same time, our memories get recorded so we can go back and take a look from time to time.  And no set of memories would be complete without a final record of the former hairiest member of our family (a title that has now passed on to Rick).

It's been just over a month now without our little pug.  Tracy and I still miss him a lot, and we think the girls do, too.  Guinness used to whine a lot for food, and eventually the girls started to think that the high pitched whimpering noise was the noise a dog made.  Whenever they see a picture of a dog in a book, they make that noise.  And what makes us think that the girls miss Guinness is when we hold them up to the window to look out in the back yard, they whimper for him.  And when we show them videos of him on the computer, they reach for the screen.  Also, a couple of times they've thrown food on the floor and then look around for him.

The day Guinness had to be put down, the girls both gave him a few pats good-bye.  Keira even tried to give him a good-bye bite.  I know it's unlikely that they will remember him when they're older, but it's nice to see them holding on to that memory as long as possible.  And now, they'll always have this blog post to look back on.

I made a video, just to quickly look through the highlights of the photos we have of him.  We have a lot of photos of him.  He was our kid before we had kids.