So this is Christmas...

The Christmas season is here! Mom tells us this is a very, very good thing. Apparently it means fabulous decorations, beautiful music, delicious goodies, and most importantly, a time to celebrate Baby Jesus!

Oh, and it also involves these special little things called presents. We're pretty sure we're going to like Christmas! The excitement is building because we get to visit lots of family over Christmas, but since we're flying to the cold North, we can't bring all of our presents on the plane. Both of our grandparents decided to send us some of our presents to our house so we wouldn't have to lug them back with us. With Grandma and Grandpa here visiting, Mom decided it would be a good idea to open a few presents early. After a fun day out and about, we got snuggly in our new pjs (thanks to our bestest buddy Kate!) and set our minds to opening our first Christmas presents. Here we are enjoying wrapping paper almost as much as we enjoy leaves:

Elyse: This sure is fun! And the paper doesn't taste so bad either...

Felicity: It's a toss up- leaves vs. wrapping paper. We've got a good system though, pull a little off, taste a little, pull a little, taste a little, repeat.

Oooo!! A xylophone! Just what we wanted! We are thinking we might have to wrestle this toy from Mom and Dad because they really like it!

Elyse: We got this really cool bounce and spin zebra to ride and he plays music and is completely awesome! Here I am bouncing away with Grandpa:

Our friend Marianne will be happy to see that I've got the one-handed horse riding technique down. Could there be a rodeo in my future? Look at me go!

Felicity: No, Elyse, it's my turn. I would like to bounce and jump alone, thankyouverymuch.

Elyse: But, Felicity, if you just push this handle up and down you'll really get going. I'll show you--just like this.

Yee-haw! We are going to have so much fun with our new zebra friend! And in case you were curious, we've named him Zeke the Zebra. And there might be a Zoey the Zebra in our near future if Elyse continues to be the "expert" everytime Felicity gets a turn!

Christmas is certainly going to be loads of excitement!

A Fancy Thanksgiving

Felicity: We decided our first Thanksgiving should be a fancy one, so we wore these very fancy dresses that our Grandma and Grandpa Butcher got for us. As you can see, for Elyse, the skirt is fun to play with, but for me, I just can't get enough of leaves!

YIPPEE for SWEET POTATOES!! The excitement for our big meal is just too much to keep inside!!!

Elyse: After consuming lots of delicious sweet potatoes, I had lots of fun just hanging out at the big table with all of our guests.

Felicity: We just had to include a picture of these great shirts our buddy Kate got for us. Mom says it describes all of our mischievous ways just perfectly. I just read it and it says: "little turkey"! Wait a minute. Who you callin' turkey, Mom?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so excited to celebrate our first official day of thanks with lots of loving family.

Today we are especially thankful for:

• Daddy and Mommy
• All of our grandmas and grandpas (and great grandparents too)
• Our many cool aunts and uncles
• Our cousins
• How healthy we are! Even though we were so little when we were born, we are now big and strong!
• Sweet potatoes (yum, yum, yum)
  
• The many ways God has blessed us with spectacular (and fancy) friends and family!

We love you and are very thankful for your love and care. Happy Thanksgiving!

Lots of Visitors!

For the whole week of Thanksgiving our Grandpa, Grandma, Aunts, and Uncle Butcher came from Wisconsin to visit us. We are having a very fun time with all of them! We're taking them on the grand tour of DC (we call it the double stroller tour extravaganza).

Felicity: This is Uncle Steve and me at the Museum of Natural History. We saw the Hope Diamond at this museum and plan on demanding this kind of rock from any future suitors!
Here we are at the National Zoo. We showed our Aunt Amy and Uncle Steve the pandas there. Now that we've seen 2 out of the 4 zoos in the country that house Pandas, we consider ourselves to be somewhat of the experts.

Felicity: During all of our gallivanting around town, I get pretty worn out, but luckily I don't mind taking catnaps in the stroller.

Elyse: After one of our adventures, we ate our favorite local diner. Now that I'm such a big girl, I got to sit in my own chair! What an exciting first for me!

Aunt Amy and I had so much fun playing with toys that I just wasn't interested in looking at the camera.

Felicity: Grandpa is a pretty funny guy!

Elyse: Just Grandma and me:

Out for a brisk walk in Old Town (we helped Mom take this picture):

Elyse: Um, Mom? Do you know where this came from? I think it's breathing. I think I'd like to crawl over it, but I'm just a little unsure about how it got here, in our kitchen.

It's a messy world out there

Always enjoying a good amount of mischief, we found the toilet paper roll for the first time and realized that it is so much fun! Here we are ripping it apart, tasting it (yuck!), and finding it quite enjoyable (to our Mom's dismay!).

Felicity: We're learning how to eat food on our own. Here is my first attempt at eating avocado:

Food is very entertaining!

Loads of Leaves!

A few Sundays ago Mom and Dad had to rake all of the leaves in our yard. They filled 23 big bags of leaves and we helped them by keeping watch over the piles!

Elyse: Okay, Felicity. So what you're saying is if I take this leaf and put it in my mouth, I won't be disappointed by how scrumptous it is? If you say so...

Felicity: Yes, Elyse, just like this! Yum, yum, yum!

An endless supply of leaves to eat. What fun!

Elyse: Hey, people? Helloooooooo? Can someone give me a hand here? I think I'm stuck.

Plenty of Mischief to Go Around

These days we are into all kinds of mischief. It is so much fun to explore and discover new things. We like to stand next to all of the furniture and walk around it (holding on of course--we're not letting go yet--are you crazy?!). We also can now climb up the entire set of stairs by ourselves and want to do it at least 3 times a day. And speaking of exciting news, besides moving all over, we each have a tooth to show how big we're getting (Elyse has 2 teeth and Felicity has one).

Here we are getting into the newspaper basket. This basket (and cords you see) are usually "baby-proofed" and off limits to us, but here we have scaled the barricade and infiltrated forbidden territory.

Felicity: I like to put everything in my mouth. Newsprint...ooo!! yummy!!! (don't worry, Mom snapped the picture and promptly took away my fun!)

Mom has this little "tableau" (as she likes to call it) on top of a basket in our living room. Now that we can stand up, we are seeing the world in a whole new light. Here, we figured out if we rock the basket, the pretty "tableau" will rock and maybe it will fall!! What fun!! So we started rocking the basket...

And rocking...Mom! Look! It's gonna fall! TIMBER!!

Oh what fun! The pretty green grassy stuff never actually fell. In fact, apparently Mom planned for us to do this very thing and has prevented it from falling, but we had loads of fun rocking the basket anyway!

Felicity: Okay, Elyse, I'll try one more time. If I just reach up like this, and then stand on my tip toes...nope, no luck. My initial assessment was correct, it's not going anywhere. What can we get into next?

Off to more marvelous adventures!

Imagine That!

We think you will all be amused by this next little post of ours. You see, to be a true representation of our lives, we'd like to include you on a little phenomenon that we like to call "twin mania" that happens every time we leave the house. We could say it only happens to us, but we know for certain (according to reliable sources--our multiples friends) that it happens to other multiples as well. So to give you a little glimpse into our everyday lives, here is what we hear when we leave the house (replies to well-wishers from our Mommy--but she doesn't really say these things):

"Are they twins?"
(Hmm...what gave it away? Two babies, same size, same clothes, sitting side by side, one mom, one stroller? We ALWAYS get this one).

"Double Trouble!"
(Yes, you are the only one in the universe to say that to us! I will smile and nod and pretend that you were NOT the hundreth person to say that today...good one! And no, they are not double trouble, but doubly wonderful, full of double the giggles and joys and happiness that babies bring. So there.)

"Oh my! Two of them? Better you than me! I can't imagine!"
(Yes, better me than you. And I actually can imagine it. Every day I imagine how wonderful it is to wake up to two sweet smiling faces that love me and are sweet little blessings. So yes, better me than you. I'm the lucky one!)

"I always wanted twins."
(Great. I'm happy for you. But all romantic visions of twins aside, it's LOTS of hard work. People always say this when the girls are sleeping like angels in the stroller...funny thing they never say it when they're both crying at once!)

Said by a cashier at Costco: "Are they homemade?"
(Excuse me? They are children, not a cake! What you are really asking is "did you do fertility treatments?" To which I want to say, it is NONE of your business. But what we really said to this one was "No, actually we found them in aisle 9. It is Costco isn't it? They sell things in bulk here.")

"Twins? Oh my! My cousin's wife's brother's step-mom's son had twins!"
(What a coincidence. I can't believe what a small world it is. Yuck. This one gets very old.)

"Well at least you're done in one shot!"
(Also, one of my favorites that is NONE of your business. But for the record, we may be done, we may not be done, but just because we had two at once does not mean we have to be done. Come on people!)

Person: "Girls or boys?" Mom: "Girls." Person: "Really?"
(Why, yes, really. What clear marker that they are girls did you miss? The two outfits that are entirely pink with flowers on them, the bows on their little heads, the pink dolls in the cart? And besides, why would I lie about such a thing?)

Person: "How old are they? 4 Months?" Mom: "No, 9 1/2 months." Person: Look of skepticism and doubt.
(Okay, so once again I ask, why would I lie about this? And it's not like they are that little for their age. They're on the growth chart people! And I still say, I'm their mom, I think I know how old they are!!)

While getting their picture taken: "Do you shave their heads?"
(Okay, we've only heard this one once, but it was too good to leave out. No, I don't shave their heads. We're just a little slow in the hair department. Apparently taking after Grandpa Beck!)

Person: "Do twins run in your family?" Mom: "Yes." Person: "Oh, so you knew this would happen."
(WHAT? No, we did NOT know this would "happen." And sometimes, if I'm feeling a bit cheeky, I'll give the person the "I was on bed-rest and read every twin book out there and can actually explain to you the probability of our having twins because of heredity and actually, it runs through the woman's genes and so no, the fact that my brother has twins does not have anything to do with me, and sometimes having twins just happens besides or even despite hereditary traits" 5 minute lecture. Then the person smiles, nods, and walks (or runs!) away from the crazy twin lady. Ah-hem, job well done by me.)

"Twins? Oh, do you watch Jon and Kate Plus 8?"
(I laugh at this one! Because people say it to me in hopes that if I haven't seen the show, I'd watch it and feel better about just having two. Sweet of them to think of us. I do LOVE the show and have seen it MANY times. So I nod, and respond that they are an amazing family and we can aspire to be as organized and put together as they are!)

Person: "Are they identical?" Mom: "No, they are fraternal." Person: "Are you sure? They look identical."
(Once again, I must say, why would I lie? And then, if I'm feeling cheeky, I'll give another mini-lecture on twinning (this one is a REALLY good lecture). And yes, I do know for sure that they are fraternal. I'm sure as they get older and continue to look as different as we know them to be, this question won't occur as often. One can only hope.)

And the GRAND FINALE:

"Twins? Well, God has blessed you twice as much!"
(We LOVE this one because the well-wishers really mean it in the sweetest way. Thank you to everyone who sees us in the store, resists saying any of the above crazy things, and instead simply smiles and gives us a sweet bit of encouragement like this. I ALWAYS smile at this one. And if it has been a long day of errands and crazy comments from crazy people, and I hear this, I want to hug the person who says it...but you'll be happy to know I resist.)

As you can imagine, all of the stopping, gawking, and well-wishers make for busy, LONG shopping trips. But mostly people are just trying to be nice, so we put on our happy faces, try to be good for Mom, and get our groove on in the store. Because one thing is for sure, we will not sacrifice our love for shopping just because one million people stop us to chat. No sir!

If you can think of a funny response our Mom should use when talking to these many well-wishers, please share your wit and humor in the comments!

The Illustrious National Zoo

One thing we forgot to share when our friends Kate and Dan were here to visit was our visit to the National Zoo!  We had so much fun there and we just love to visit zoos anywhere, so this one, right in our very own city, is especially great!

Kate and Dan in front at the entrance to the zoo (note Starbucks in hand--located perfectly across the street from the zoo--a very important detail for Mom!):

The baby panda at the zoo was fast asleep right by the window when we visited him.  We were very interested in his exasperated expression!

At this point, we were feeling a little like Baby Panda.  Seriously, Mom, can't we just go take a nap with him?  Because this picture taking has got to stop! (Note the panda behind us--paw over forehead, just fed-up with all of his visitors!):

Just the girls!  Here we are right before a Starbucks run after a long day at the zoo with Mommy and Kate:

Thanks for all of the fun Kate and Dan!  We had a great time with you!

Frolicking in Fall

For the first time this fall, we played in the leaves and it was so much fun! Daddy raked up a big pile for us to play in and we really liked how crunchy the leaves were to roll around in. And all of our new crawling and mobile skills came quite in handy while exploring the yard.  We know that many of our readers are in the Midwest where fall has quickly turned to winter, but the leaves here have just changed and are starting to fall (no snow here!).  We can't wait for the next nice day to play outside!

Felicity: Mom had this sneaky plan to give us our pacifiers so we wouldn't eat the leaves.  It worked, but I see right through her plan...next time I won't be so easily swayed!

Elyse: Hmmm...this is an interesting situation.  Do you think I'm going to get dirty, Mom?  I don't know if I'm up for that!

Ahh!  Who cares about dirt?  These leaves are way too interesting to worry about silly things like that!

Felicity: Mom!  Look what I found!