1st Birthday Party

We celebrated Anna and John's first birthday party at Ault Park on September 22nd. We decided to have a country/teddy bear theme. The weather threw us for a loop, being very windy!!! All of our decorations blew over. It was hard to even keep the tablecloths on the tables! Although windy, it was a beautiful,sunny fall day, perfect for a party at a park. Friends and family helped make this day extra special- coming from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Indy and Boston!!! The babies were surrounded by a crazy amount of love on this day:) Thanks to my dad and our nephew Sean, we got tons of great pictures. There is just no way to post them all, so here is a snapshot of Anna and John's party.  A huge thank you to everyone who traveled to be here. It meant so much to John and I to have all the most important people in our lives here to celebrate this momentous day. We love you all!!!



Cake time

Presents!

12 Months!!!



My attempt at getting both of their pictures!

 Anna and John turned 12 months on September 17th.  We spent the morning playing and John stayed home from work to make breakfast for the babies. They had pancakes for the first time and loved them. After nap time, we took them to our favorite local spot, Mt. Adams Bar and Grill for some lunch. President Obama was campaigning in our neighborhood but we weren't able to sneak a peak. We couldn't even get close! After our search for the President we finished up with some vanilla frozen yogurt. The babies loved it! We wanted to save the cake for their party the following weekend.

Birthday pancakes made by daddy

Lunch at Mt. Adams Bar and Grill

Future Democrats :)

Vanilla frozen yogurt at the UDF

Yum!

In Anna and John's 12th month, they've done a lot more growing! Anna and John both took their first steps, Anna on 9-28 and John on 10-18. Since then they've taken a few more steps but aren't walking on a regular basis, baby steps, right?! When Anna isn't using her feet to walk, she's "walking" on her knees. Most people that see her doing this say they've never seen this before. We haven't either! She's actually pretty fast when she knee walks. John prefers the traditional crawling :) Along with their new mobility, they've also become more independent in other areas. They have their very own snack cups, John learned how to clap, and Anna learned how to say moo and they both give high fives. They've also started eating their food pouches on their own, which has been really nice, kinda like when they started holding their own bottles:) The sweetest thing Anna and John have learned is to hold their lovies close to their faces and give them a big hug, rocking from side to side while we say "awwwww." They are now doing this with just about everything. It's so fun to see this sweet side to their personalities.  And lastly, Anna and John absolutely love making a mess. This means dumping out drawers, dumping out anything and everything in baskets and everything in between. We don't love this but it does keep them quite entertained.

As this first year winds down, we just can't believe we survived:) It has been a crazy, but very rewarding year. More details to come about the big birthday bash in the next blog post:) Oh, and the "photo shoot" for their 12 month pictures was a little difficult, but I decided to post them anyway. That's life:)

11 Months

Anna and John turned 11 months on August 17th. As you can see, I'm a little behind on the blogging. Yikes! We've been very busy with planning the big 1st birthday bash, getting things ready for the semi-annual twins sale, and having lots of visitors in town!

In this 11th month both Anna and John became more steady on two feet, standing without help for a few seconds at a time. They love their push toys and are getting faster and more agile everyday. During a visit to Nana and Pop's house the babies learned how to climb the stairs and had lots of fun doing it over and over again!!  On another visit this month to our friend Erin's house in Cleveland, Anna learned to clap, thanks to Erin's niece Grace. Now every time someone says "yay" Anna gets a huge smile on her face and starts to clap. We've been working on a few signs, and I think when Anna wants more to eat she claps instead of doing the actual sign. We are still waiting for them to pick up on the signs :). The babies, and parents, had a wonderful time at the Fitzgerald house swimming in the pool and just hanging out. We were loving all the extra help and looking forward to our next visit:)

Anna learned how to give hugs this month and it's absolutely adorable. She hugs her mom and dad and her toys, no hugs for her brother yet! She's also started feeding us her food, especially her Cheerios. We graciously pretend to enjoy her offerings.  Getting dressed and diaper changes have become somewhat of a struggle with the both of them, to say the least!

John loves crawling around with his bottle hanging out if his mouth like he's caught some really delicious prey. He may just want to keep his bottle away from his sister! Along with enjoying his bottle, he grew another top tooth this month. He's working to grow a fourth upper tooth, but it hasn't broken through yet. He's a tough boy and has been handling all the teething very well. John's expressions are hilarious and he started making a fishy face this month. He thinks he's pretty cool when he does it and we think it's pretty darn cute!

Cousin Amelia and John

Ethan and Anna having fun at Nan and Pop's.

Anna and Abby are hungry!

Thanks for the floaties Aunti Erin!!

 

 

 

 

 

10 Months

Anna and John turned 10 months on July 17th. The big event this month was John pulling up to standing and starting to cruise around!  He also sprouted his two top teeth, and one bottom tooth, much to my surprise. I looked in his month one day and there they were! John has a new affnity towards doors and cabinets. He loves opening and closing anything on a hinge, so we had to do some more baby proofing this month.

Cars were another discovery for John this month. We visited with the Faiz's in August and Saleh shared his cars with John. He had so much fun playing with the big boys, Saleh and Zakir. He now "drives" anything and everything across the floor, including toys, chairs, paper, you name it, he drives it! We need to get some cars for this boy for his birthday :) I realized after being at the Faiz house that we have no "girl" toys or "boy" toys. We are very gender neutral right now.  Another first at the Faiz house was their first bath in a big tub. They loved having all the room to splash around and play with the boys' toys!

We may have a future basketball player on our hands, as well. John loves putting blocks and balls through any kind of opening and enjoys dumping toys out and putting them back in a container. I hope he's going to start cleaning up his toys soon:) These babies make a MESS!!! They take every toy out and scatter them all across the floor.  It's a good thing our play room is on the top floor where we can hide the mess!

Anna continued to crawl and cruise around at warp speed this month. I would be surprised if she wasn't walking by her 1st birthday in September. She's a riot and loves playing games like peek-a-boo, "chase" and putting things on her head, watching them fall, then shrieking with laughter. She's also started stacking blocks and thinks it's hilarious to knock them down and not allow anyone to build any towers! Anna loves dropping anything and everything behind her back. I guess she discovered that's something else she can do all by herself:)

Together, the babies love dancing. By dancing I mean, waving their hands in the air and John likes to bend his knees and move up and down. John and Anna find pure enjoyment in shaking and banging things. Their father taught them to bang their hands on the table during meal time, while he chants, "More food, more food!" I'm not a huge fan of that one :)  Whenever Anna finds a toy that's a "shaky, shaky toy" she gets so excited and immediately turns to look at me with a big O mouth :)  Perhaps my favorite milestone this month is their self sufficiency when eating. The babies now hold their own bottles and this has changed our lives!!! They continue to love "real people" food and Anna will pretty much try anything. Her brother is not as brave an eater just yet, but he's getting better.

As a family, we ventured to our favorite city, Chicago!!! Stories and pictures to come in the next blog...

Playing at the Faiz's!

All smiles in Indy :)

Hooray!!!

John "sliming" Anna !

Bath time! Check out my 3 bottom teeth. (I have 3 on the top too)!

Daddy loves spiking Anna's long hair :)

Check out my 2  bottom teeth!