Happy Birthday Jesus!

As we prepare for our cross-country trip to the Midwest, we want to take a chance to wish all of our faithful blog readers a very Merry Christmas! Even though we've had a fun first Christmas season so far with family, friends, and lots of presents, we must remember that the most important part of Christmas is celebrating the birth of Jesus! May you be blessed this Christmas with God's love.

Merry Christmas!

(And can you believe we are 11 months old today? Where has the time gone? Just one more month until we are officially 1!)

The More the Merrier this Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration with our DC family on Sunday night. Peter, our favorite guy to hang out with (besides Daddy!), is so much fun! We got to meet Peter's sister Laurie for the first time and of course, she is fabulous too! Peter and Laurie's mom is our great-grandma's sister and we are so lucky to get to spend time with all of them!
Peter and his sister Laurie (and if you're wondering, they are our Grandma's cousins) played with us all night! Hanging out with them is present enough, but we were lucky enough to get toys from them too! We had so much fun! Here I was thinking about how nice it is to hang around someone who is a little light in the hair department...

Our favorite DC family:

Our new friend Ava and her parents came over too. Here we are opening more presents. Whew! Where are we going to keep all of our new toys?

Elyse: Grandma and Grandpa sent us some gifts that were too big for us to take on the plane, so we opened them too. We just love our new barn and Noah's Ark! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! Of course we especially love Noah's Ark because the animals come in pairs and we love things that come in twos!

Felicity: It is nice that we can hold the Noah's Ark and farm toys all on our own. Such fun!

Peter got us the cutest Horton the elephant!

We love Horton the best of ALL the Dr. Seuss characters because Horton believes that "A person's a person no matter how small." And we think that is a very good philosophy to have!

What a wonderful Christmas we've already have! We love our DC family very much--thank you for all of the wonderful fun!

A little Christmas Celebration

Because we aren't going to bring all of our presents with us to MN so that we can bring them back with us on the plane (that would be silly!), we had a nice celebration just the 4 of us this past Saturday. We put on fancy outfits and enjoyed the tree, Christmas music, and lots of fun presents!

This moment of sisterly love was short-lived because we were SO EXCITED!!
Felicity: Okay, so I'm thinking we need some sort of game plan, Elyse. Maybe you open the presents and I'll taste the bows and paper? No? You want to taste the paper and bows too? Maybe we can work something out...

Oh, Felicity! Who needs paper and bows when we've got these cool tunnels and tents to play in? Yippee!!!!

Hmmm, you might be right, Elyse. I'm going to get you!

You can find me in the tent playing with toys. And Mom and Dad---No Parents Allowed!!

Yum, yum...this paper tastes good! I could get used to opening presents:

The bows are tasty too!

Felicity: We got these cute bath towels with an octopus on the hood. I bet you can't find me, Dad! I'm a tricky one!

Let's open this one next!

This is what happens when our mom tries to take our picture. We're not sitting still, no way! Woo, hoo! Merry Christmas!

Santa Claus is in Town!

We finally got to see Santa! Mommy and our cousin Peter took us to Santa's workshop to meet him and take a picture with him. Here's what we decided about Santa: he's a jolly guy, but we can't quite figure out what all the fuss is about; his velvet red suit is extremely cool and fuzzy; his beard is fun to pull, but he might not like that; and best of all, he has a twin-size lap for both of us! Ho, ho, ho!!! Merry Christmas!We weren't scared at all, in fact we were mostly just curious about jolly old St. Nick. If the first picture looks like we were nervous, we were actually wondering why our Mom was jumping up and down behind the camera guy like a fool. Mom, is that really necessary? We are in public...she can be so embarassing!

And if you're wondering, our pants have presents on them and our shirts say "Good things come in small pacakges." We agree!!

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Felicity: I like to sit in front of the Christmas tree, enjoy the sparkly twinkle lights, and dance to Christmas music. Rockin' around the Christmas tree is quite entertaining!
Elyse: Oh, Mom! She's at it again! Felicity is so silly. What are we going to do with her? Not another rendition of Jingle Bells on the xylophone!

Party Animals

We were so lucky to have a wonderful Christmas brunch party at our house on Tuesday. Our sweet friend Annie (from Pittsburgh), her sister-in-law and nephew, and some of their friends who live here all came over for a yummy Christmas brunch and playdate. We had loads and loads and loads of fun! There actually are no words to describe how fabulous it was to meet some kids our age and other mommies!

Here we are as a group of stylish tots. On the left is Ava. She lives in the area temporarily and will be coming over for many more playdates until she has to go back to her home in Nashville. She's not really used to crowds as you can see from the picture...but we made her feel right at home and shared our toys with her and she warmed up to the zoo that is our twin existence in no time! Next to Ava is Noah. He has hair that we only dream about! Noah is a very sweet boy and if he didn't live in Hawaii, we'd have him over for many more playdates too!

Felicity: Elyse, um, I'm a little worried you've forgotten me over here...
Elyse: Oh, Felicity! Don't be silly! Isn't it great we have a new friend to play with? See, Ava, our craziness is contagious!

Elyse: Of course we spent some good time with Annie too. She's a marvelous friend!

Noah is Annie's nephew and Katie is his mommy. They flew here all the way from Hawaii---whoa! That's one LOOOOONG flight. Way to be a world-traveller Noah! We just had so much fun playing with him and are still envious of how much hair he has.

Here's the whole crew. Thanks for the fancy Christmas fun everyone. We had a stupendous time!

(Check out Annie's mad two-baby holding skills!)

Go Vikings, Go!

We are quite pleased that the Vikings are doing so well this year (although Daddy is less than pleased...and of course the Packers are really doing poorly...what a sad, sad story). So back to the MN Vikings. Woo hoo! This last Sunday we enjoyed part of the game cheering with Mommy. Elyse: You will notice that Felicity is excited, but I'm actually very seriously considering being a Packer fan, so I'm trying to keep all emotional outbursts for the Vikings at a minimum.

Elyse: Umm...hello? Can someone please take this purple Vikings hat off of me?

Felicity: Hi. My doll here is a Vikings fan also. She'll be doing a little dance with me when they score.

And the Vikings win again! It must be these lucky hats we're wearing.

And if you're wondering, these cute outfits are our travel outfits for Christmas Eve. We had them on today to get our picture taken with Santa, but the line was too long and so we're going to go another time (stay tuned for the picture!).

Baby it's cold outside...not really

While many of our closest friends are holed-up in the house because they live in a frozen tundra (we can't wait to visit!!) we have been experiencing above normal temperatures here in the nation's capitol (even though people here think 40 degrees is cold). The other day when it was a balmy 60 degrees, we decided to visit the park with our favorite cousin Peter. I'm mean really, who thought we'd be swinging at the park in December?Elyse: Look at me, Mom! I love this swinging thing!

Felicity: The warm sun was even cause to pull out the sunglasses. I think I'm pretty cool!

We're big enough now to go down the slide with only a little help. This park was nice enough to have a side-by-side slide just for twins like us! How nice of them.

Here's to warm weather and playing at the park! But really, we actually would like a little cold, a little snow, and a more festive environment to ring in those Christmas bells. Oh well, in just one week we'll be experiencing our first arctic blast in the frozen north. Yippee!!!

And by the way, the park was not busy--at all. There were maybe three other kids there. Come on people, it's practically a heat wave!

Pacifier Thief Strikes Again!

Felicity: Let me tell you a little tale. So we had a great-uncle (and he sadly passed away) who had this amazing Santa Bear collection (it's too long to go into now, but Santa Bears are from Dayton's which then became Marshall Field's which is now Macy's...and they were really cool and a Minnesota staple...and like I said, too long to explain here) but anyways, this year we were lucky enough to get part of the collection. Santa Bear went on lots of adventures (into space, across the world, became a cook, a magician, a ski instructor...the list goes on) and he also met a pretty bear named Miss Bear. Then, he married Miss Bear and she became Mrs. Santa Bear--and if you're wondering, they had a beautiful wedding and she got a big ring. Then one year, the Santa Bears had twins! Just like us! But not like us because they had a girl and a boy. So here is a picture of the Santa Bear family with the twins in their front carriers. Yes, they are just that cute!

When I first discovered this cute little bear family, I thought to myself, "wow, a cute little bear family! But why, oh why, do these little bears have my pacifier? And why, oh why can't I get the pacifiers away from them? Stubborn little bears..." And so, this nice little Santa Bear tale ends with me trying to steal the baby bears' pacifiers. Ahhh...pacifier thief strikes again!

Elyse: While Felicity is busy stealing pacifiers (at least she's leaving mine alone for the time being), I'm busy doing important things like helping Daddy with a little business: "Yes, that's right, I have a nap scheduled at one, a playdate at 3, dinner at 6...I know, I know, so busy! What's a girl to do!...

Um, Dad, I'm still working here...I see that we've got to enter receipts, balance the budget...Dad, are you paying attention? We've got work to do!...

Ok, ok, I'll look at the camera, but I can't say I'm happy about it. I take my job very seriously!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Earlier this week we got the house all ready for Christmas! We just love the tree and twinkle lights and the pretty music that Christmas brings. As this is our first Christmas, Mom didn't want us to get into the ornaments (us? we would NEVER do that!), so she put up this dining-chair blockade. After a few tries, we infiltrated her initial block and she had to create a new obstacle for us...tricky lady, our Mom, but we're sure to give her a run for her money!

Even though we couldn't help put the ornaments up, of course we gave Mom our generous input: "A little bit to the left!...No, that ornament should NOT be on that branch...Do you think Dad will appreciate his Packer ornament way back there in the corner?...Are those candy canes to eat, or just for show?...I'd like my 'Baby's first Christmas' ornament a little higher please--thank you!...If we can't eat the candy canes, can we eat the gingerbread people?...No?...Bummer." And so on. You get the idea. Elyse: Mom, aren't you supposed to be decorating the tree and not taking my picture? Back to work! We've got a whole house to decorate!

Felicity: Ta-dah! The finished product is sparkly and fancy. Just our style. And what is that stuffed Grinch you see in my lap? Oh, that's just a little something we have to remind us of Daddy...

And being such a momentous Christmas for our family (because we're around this year, of course!), it's the first year our parents have had a 7 foot tree. What a Merry Christmas indeed!

Exploration 2.0

Felicity: There was a time in our short little lives that finding a cool toy hanging above our heads seemed like an amazing discovery, but now that we're so mobile, let me tell you, the world is our oyster!

The other day I was simply exploring the rooms upstairs when I stumbled upon a treasure trove of shoes!! And there were lots of them! As you can see, I had to pick each one up and discover just what makes it fabulous (and I didn't quite have time to put them back in the neat little rows Mom had them in). Just when I was thinking how much I loved the brown peep-toe Steve Maddens and the black BCBG flats, Mom surprised me with the camera. And I said, "Hey there lady, I'm very focused as fashion is serious business, I've got to get back to work. Oh and yeah, I'll put these back just how I found them...sort of..."As we continue to explore everything, we've found these pesky gates popping up in unexpected places. Do you really think this is necessary? You're not still thinking about that little toilet paper incident are you? Oh, Mom!

Elyse: If I stand on my tippy-toes just like this...I can almost...uh...see over the top!