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Sunday, September 24, 2000

Catching up on milestones. For the past week, Paul has been home alone with the kids. For some reason, he claims that this has been hindering his attempts to keep this site up to date. Slacker! :-)

In general we've been noticing lately that Maya is a lot more physical (waving hands and legs with calculated abandon) while Bryn is more verbal (when she's in the right mood, she'll happily babble at you for as much as 20 minutes in a row). Both girls seem to be developing quite rapidly, each in her own way.

For the record, here are some recent milestones:

1. Yesterday after lunch, Maya was practicing pushups while Daddy was taking pictures.



She happily bopped up and down, testing out her arm strength:

  

After a few minutes of this, she closed her eyes to concentrate:



Then, with a big smile, she popped up, straightened her right arm, bent her left arm...

  

... and promptly disappeared out of the frame. Gravity had taken over and she'd rolled over onto her back for the first time!

2. Then this morning, Maya laughed for the first two times while playing with her Mommy. (Bryn bestowed her laughs on Gramma weeks ago.)

3. Finally, a few hours ago, Bryn rolled over from her belly for the first time, too. The hard way. Bryn's not really all that big on pushups yet, but she managed to keep up with her sister anyhow. Without any assistance from her upper body, she simply whipped her legs and hips hard enough to one side to roll over entirely.

Where there's a will, there's a way.
1:49:00 AM

Wednesday, September 20, 2000

Three generations. From later that afternoon, a candid shot of Bryn and her mother and her mother:



2:49:00 PM

Three weeks ago today ... Kathy's Aunt Glenna and Uncle Bob came by the house for a visit before they left town. Somehow they managed to arrive around feeding time ...

... and got drafted, of course. :-)



Bob had it easy -- Bryn is a very focused, determined eater.

  

Glenna, on the other hand, got to see a full performance of Maya's interpretive hand (and foot) gestures at close range.

  

If sign languages ever get expanded to include foot gestures, Maya will probably be responsible. :-)
2:49:00 PM

Red eye. Finicky readers will note that the red-eye hasn't been removed from the full-size images.



There are three potential explanations for this:

1. We're twin parents. Who's got time for that?

2. Nobody's emailed me instructions on which Gimp filter(s) to use.

3. We're saving copies of that "demon child" look for later blackmail in the highly-unlikely event we need it.
1:32:00 AM

We're a family of avid readers, and can often be found with a baby in our laps, rereading a favorite book (or three). Tonight, for story time, Kath got down on the floor for a double-header of Bruce Degen's "Jamberry" and Sandra Boynton's "The Going To Bed Book" (hint hint).

Maya (on the left), stayed focused on each book, while Bryn kept an eye on both parents.

  

Did you enjoy those stories, kids?



Oh, yes! Thanks, Mommy!
1:32:00 AM

Monday, September 18, 2000

Reception. The reception that night was also held on the same grounds, which were quite lovely. For example, here's a shot of the loft where the kids got fed. With all that sun streaming in, it got pretty toasty up there, but it was much cooler outside, where we ate dinner on the lawn.

Maya, the social butterfly, flitted back and forth from arm to arm. Here she is in arms of her Gramma and Grandad:

  

Bryn, knowing a good thing when she sees it, camped out quite happily in the arms of cousin Steve:



Meanwhile, at the head table, they were blowing bubbles, which allowed for some lovely pictures of the beaming bride and groom:



Smile for the camera!



Other than that, the only other pictures we got were this snap of a cool birdhouse on the grounds behind a Narnia-inspired walk-in dollhouse...



... and this shot of the beaming bride and her mom, Bonnie:



2:57:00 AM

Kim's Wedding! Three weeks ago yesterday, we took the girls to the wedding of Kathy's cousin Kim to John Friesen. Since this was the twins' first formal social engagement, we went all out on the wardrobe front. Instead of the usual onesies and jammies, we actually dressed the kids ...

... in socks! In public! (You'll have to trust us on that one, because there aren't any pictures to prove it.)

Anyhow, we all went to the wedding, and the kids were amazingly good. The wedding took place in a stunning outdoor chapel, nestled in a hollow underneath towering redwoods. (You can't beat that ceiling in any cathedral.) We deliberately sat in the very back row, so that we could make a quick exit if needed. Imagine, then, our horror when the first (and only) squawk of the day happened as the bridal party started coming down the hill ... behind us! So much for our escape route. Fortunately, a promptly-applied pinky finger did the job, and that was the last squawk we heard for the rest of the day. (The little darlings!)

On the left are John and Kim's parents, Bob Friesen and Bonnie Squires. On the right are the flower girls, Kim's nieces Kaelah and Aimee Squires.

  

Here comes the bride, escorted by her brother Frank:



And, after a short ceremony, there go the Friesens!



We also got a few artsy shots, courtesy of some unintended motion. For example, don't you think the combination of light and blurring actually emphasizes Kim's radiance? And there's no doubt that the impressionistic picture on the right could come straight from a painting by Renoir or Cassat.

  

Finally, remember that hill we mentioned earlier? Well, to help you get a feel for how huge the trees were, here's a long shot of the wedding party:



They're about halfway up the hill. Wow!
2:55:00 AM

Friday, September 15, 2000

Rehearsal dinner. That night, Kim invited all of the out-of-town friends and family to dinner at Lindsey's at the Summit, a cool restaurant on the way to Santa Cruz with wonderful views of the coastal range.

The left-hand picture shows Travis, Bev, Glenna, Kathy, and Bob all waiting in line for some of that yummy food. The table-full of cousins on the right includes Jena, Steve, Frank, Kim, Bonnie, Eric, and Teri (counter-clockwise from the right) with Kaelah and Deb in the background.

  

We didn't get any pictures of the view -- we'll have to test the panorama feature of the camera some other time -- but in the opposite direction was a really cool goldfish pond.



Believe it or not, I didn't even notice the reflection until after the picture was taken. Now that's a great camera -- seeing things that you didn't!

7:49:00 PM

Three weeks ago today... we were getting ready for a full weekend's worth of activities with Kathy's family, who were all in town for the wedding of her cousin Kim.

Like most days, this one began in the middle of the night with a snack for Bryn. Sometimes it's not easy to get everyone awake for this, but we manage.

  

During the day, we found some time to practice with various features of the camera. For example, say that Grandad and Daddy each have a baby in their lap, and there's nobody else to take a picture. No problem! Zoom across the room to snap a picture of Maya in one lap, then switch to Macro mode to capture a "lap-top" shot of Bryn.

  

As you can tell, I'm particularly fond of that macro mode, because it allows one-handed closeups of Bryn getting ready to wake up ...

  

... or Maya practicing various smiles.

  

What fun!
7:47:00 PM

Oh, and if you're not sure which one is Maya and which one's Bryn, you can always check out their new home pages.

We trust that nobody will get Kathy and Paul confused, but just in case, we've added pictures to their home pages as well. (Many thanks to Grandad and Farfar for digging out and scanning them in.)
12:52:00 AM

Return of the pictures. Well, it's taken three whole weeks, but we've finally resolved those "technical difficulties" which were keeping us from posting cool pictures from our snazzy new digital camera.

There's quite a backlog of pictures (we filled two flash cards), so rather than flood them all up at once, here's what we're going to do. Each day, we'll set the "way back machine" to three weeks ago, and post the pictures which were taken on that day. Then, once we're caught up, we'll go back to normal.

To get things started, we'll jump the gun and post two smiles.

  
12:34:00 AM

Tuesday, September 12, 2000

Scooting. We're starting to notice that each of the kids have found ways to move around a bit. It's the kind of thing we never actually see while it's happening. We just find ourselves scratching our heads and asking ourselves -- hey, that's not where I put that baby, is it?

For example, I put Bryn down in the center of her quilt a little while ago and looked up to realize she'd moved several body lengths at a 45 degree angle -- her left foot was now past where her right hand had been.

Likewise, yesterday Maya rotated herself a full 180 degrees while on her tummy -- starting out with her head facing the window, and ending up with her feet facing that way. Nobody saw her spinning, but somehow she managed to lurch her way around.

Anyone patient enough to actually catch these two in the act is encouraged to tell us how they actually do it. Bonus points if you actually teach them to hold onto their rattles without dropping them. :-)
7:43:00 PM

Sunday, September 10, 2000

A minor milestone yesterday.

When the kids were first born, we dressed them in a bunch of cute outfits even though they were kind of big and baggy on them. However, over the past few weeks, we've been noticing that those same outfits have been looking a lot better on them. Doh! They actually fit now. Perfectly! What a concept!

Anyhow, yesterday was the first time we had to take an outfit off immediately after putting it on because it was just too small!

(First-time parents get excited over the strangest things.)
7:22:00 PM

Thursday, September 07, 2000

Of course, the other highlight of today's "two month" (sic) checkup at the pediatrician's were the immunizations, an experience which can be summed up in 9 words, as follows:

Five injections. Each. Ouch! Lots of Baby Tylenol. Phew!
12:24:00 AM

Def. Big: adj.   1. word used to describe babies after 10 weeks of seemingly constant eating.   2. syn. tall, long  ex. "Today Maya is 22 3/4 inches and 9 lbs 3 oz. She's so big!"   3. syn. heavy, solid  ex. "Today Bryn is 22 1/4 inches and 9 lbs 10 oz. She's so big!"
12:05:00 AM

Monday, September 04, 2000

Another "first" for the babies. Early this morning, we felt our first earthquake, a 5.2 up in Napa.

Well, some of us felt it. Maya had kept a few of us up quite late with her "vocal antics" and had finally fallen into a deep enough sleep for her Gramma (Bev) to dare carry her to bed. After several hours of fussing, it takes some pretty intense concentration to make sure that the tiny sleeper isn't jostled awake again. Talk about focus -- neither Maya nor Gramma noticed a thing.

Likewise Bryn, who'd been asleep in her crib for several hours, never budged. Kath, who'd also been sleeping soundly, reports that she thought someone was trying to shake her awake -- presumably to deal with the babies. However, as soon as she realized nobody else was in the room, she promptly fell back to sleep. Priorities are priorities, after all.

The only one to really experience the quake was Paul, awake on the swing shift, who actually got to experience the waving ground, the shaking pillars, and the creaking roof. He reports that it was too brief to be scary.
2:57:00 AM

Sunday, September 03, 2000

For today's outing, we took the twins for a 3 mile stroll along the nearby Sawyer Camp Trail. Since it was getting close to dusk, we wrapped them up in onesies, jammies, their new sweaters from their great-Grammie, plus hats, blankets and quilts. Yes, it's still summer here. No, that's not overkill.

This is the first time Kathy's been out with the double stroller (she's missed all of the jaunts up the steep hills on our street) and she agrees -- it's wonderful. On the outbound leg, we were walking into the setting sun, and there still was almost enough shade for the babies. Then, to really convince us, after the sun started setting and we turned around to go home, both kids decided to put up a fuss -- probably because it cooled off so fast.

It wasn't hard to soothe them -- all we had to do was swaddle them tight, hold them close to us to keep them warm, and pop the all-purpose pinky finger (aka the human pacifier) in their mouths. However, you can imagine how tired our arms were a mile later.

This is the last time we forget to bring the paratrooper outfits on a long walk. :-)
3:47:00 AM

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