The "Hulking" 1 yr olds!

The twins had their 1 year check in with the Dr. today and they are doing great! Their pediatrician was impressed with their walking skills and their chatty conversational abilities. The end of the appointment, with the vaccinations, was the no fun part as usual. Today they received a poke for each leg plus a bonus one in the arm. Ouch. Jackson screamed briefly then calmed right down, Genevieve screamed with huge tears and then glared at the poor nurse. :-)

The newest stats!

Genevieve:
21 lbs even (50th%)
46.4 cm head (80%)
29 5/8 in (75%)

Jackson:
21 lbs 3 oz (20%)
47 cm head (75%)
30 1/4 in (60%)

No huge surprise - Jackson maintains his slight lead, by 3 oz! Just an ounce off of the difference they had at birth. That's impressive (although slightly odd)! Jackson has pulled back ahead in the height department - & by more than just 1/8 inch! Given the haphazard way in which child height measurements are taken, however, I don't put TOO much stock into them. Genevieve gets the distinction of saying she quadrupled her birth weight by age 1 - exactly quadrupled it, actually! 5 lbs 4 oz to 21 lbs. Jackson started out 4 oz larger so he can't claim this impressive trivia fact though.

When we compare the twins to Bentley in the weight department - well, it's a bit depressing (for Bentley & I, that is!). At Bentley's 2 yr appt he weighed 21 lbs 6 oz - just 3 oz more than Jackson at 1 year. YIKES!

That's it for now. I'm off to offer the Bentley child more food!

Jake walks!

He did it! Jake showed off his fine walking skills today. He took four steps towards me. He did it more than once, too. I knew he'd been holding out on us.

Expect to see lots of photos of Jake standing and walking and chasing his twin in the coming weeks.

The Final Chair Shots

I can't believe we've remembered to take these shots for a whole year! May I present, one last time, the amazing growing Jackson & Genevieve slideshow from 0-12 months:


Way to grow, babies! You've come a long way from your preemie days. :-)

The Cake Meisters

Some cake shots of the twins! Thinking back to Bentley's 1st birthday... we had pound cake and I tried to top the cupcakes with cool whip for him - he was not interested. That cool whip touched his hands ONCE and he would not touch it again. The twins, on the other hand, were much more willing to dig in and play with the cake. Next year I might just go ahead and mold some playdoh in the shape of cakes and then decorate, as I'm not sure they ate much - but they sure enjoyed tearing it all apart. :-)

The Birthday Festivities

Viva & Jake are 1 and we survived the whole 1st year! The combination of not being pregnant with twins (yeah!), a desire to bake, and just pure joy at being over the early exhausing newborn stage combined to create some fun festivities at our house.

Great Grandma came to visit in the afternoon, bearing gifts. The favorite? The fruit snack treats were a huge hit. Genevieve ripped open the box and both she and Jackson tried to tear into the bags immediately. You'd think I don't feed them if you'd seen this zealous display!

Here are the stars of the day, refusing to smile because they want their cake and they want it now (I flatter myself - more likely the lack of smiles is because they're done with the pictures!):

The cakes! I made mini cakes (5 inch, 4 inch, and 3 inch) and stacked them. In my head I pictured it looking gorgeous, but turns out I'm still not an expert cake decorator. They were still cute though. Strawberry cream cheese cakes, although you can't tell since they're hidden under all the frosting and sprinkles! They were so cute tearing up the cakes that they get a whole post just about that. Stay tuned. :-)

Bentley (and the rest of us) shared a larger cake to celebrate getting getting the past year! I featured Bentley's favorite candy in the food - the Reeses cup. I figure that is only fair as it's probably Bentley who's had the most adjustments to deal with (and done a lovely job, I might add) after we brought the twins home. It was delicious - a chocolate cake with dark chocolate reeses cut up inside the cake, on the top as garnish, and with a chocolate peanut butter frosting. Yum!

All of the grandparents were able to join us for cake in the evening - Grandma Vicki joining us all the way from South Dakota for the fun times! Although not yet totally catching the vision, the twins were good sports and took a stab at trying to open the gifts. Their attention was certainly captured when they discovered the fun loot inside the gifts though!

It was a long fun filled day. The twinks are now resting up for the morning birthday bash with their play mates.

Viva & Jake at 1

Happy Birthday, Genevieve & Jackson! We had a fun filled day from start to end. It's amazing to me what vibrant, forceful, amazing personalities they've turned into. I know that babies are born with some of this personality, but to be honest they're mostly like tiny lumps on day 1 - lots of potential, but with the results not in yet. Not so at year 1. We had a brain storming session as a family tonight. Who are the twins?

The twins are both:

Happy
Independent
Brilliant (no, I'm not biased!!)
Charming
Dominant (all 3 kids think they are the alpha, actually)
Well-rounded (bellies, knees, elbows, cheeks... !)

Genevieve is:

Wild
Enthusiastic
Impish
Fearless
Solemn
Gentle
Adventerous
Restless
Vivacious
Serene
Flirtatious
Temperate
Muppet-like (it's the hair!)
Impatient
Sweet
Easy Going


Jackson is:

Cautious
Strong(er than his sister!)
Forceful
Hungry
Sharing
Focused
Affectionate
Valiant
Cuddly
Expressive
Wide-Eyed
Grinning
Talkative
Squirmy (at diaper time and clothing time!)
Dangeresque (according to his Father - Strongbad - I don't get it?)
Charismatic


Those descriptors are all over the board, aren't they?! The beauty of group brain storming! They're quite the little bundles of personality, and we're blessed to have them. Happy #1, twinks!

Music at the Library

Our local library has a summer music program, a different band comes and performs on the upper deck every Tuesday. For those of you not familiar with Anchorage, we are lucky enough to have a huge (& fun looking) library:

We've been taking advantage of the nice weather to go sit out on the grass and listen to the music. To be completely honest I should say we go sit out on the grass, eat food, chase children - and at least hear some light music in the background. It's a nice way to spend an hour with our friends! Plus, my father's work is just a few short steps away from the library so it's easy to convince him to stop by. Once we're all there it's not a hard sell to convince my Mom to come over, and we have a party. :-)

Genevieve & Jackson have just recently discovered that the blanket is not much of a boundary. Yesterday all the children were departing in different directions, having a grand time wandering around. Check out the look of glee on this face:

And a few more of the kids:

And a few of the whole gang - 7 kids yesterday! It's amazing how quick those kids start to add up when you get a few sets together. :-)

We had fun, but with the new found sense of adventure the twins have I'm considering the need for boundaries. Maybe a few super yards (a big set of gates that make a play yard) strung together - my friends and I were discussing the massive yard we could have if we each brought 1 super yard and combined them! We'll turn it into the music at the park day care hour and charge other parents for the option to drop their children in our huge pen. I think it might be a winning business plan! :-)

Solstice Cuties

On Summer Solstice (Saturday) Mark and I took the kidlets for a stroll to the playground near their home. We wanted to give Bentley a chance to play. We wanted to give their parents a short break. The twins were caught in the middle of these two goals. As we've mentioned before, playgrounds are not favorite play arenas of (almost) one year olds. Every time we took them out of the stroller they ate rocks. Both of them. I'd no sooner fish a rock from twin A's mouth than twin B would have one in their mouth. YUCK! What is it with the rock eating?!

While visiting the playground, Mark (with my help and guidance!) took some fine photos of the grandbabies. Or should I have said Mark took some photos of the fine grandbabies? They just grow cuter with every passing day. (We have proof of this--thousands of photos!)

Genevieve was the star photo model on Saturday. She was dressed the cutest (well, she is the girl!) and she worked with us the best. Here's our first set of photos on the playground:





Well, I see that Jackson and Bentley both out grinned Genevieve in the above photos, but you'll see why she's the star performer in a minute. Great job, boys!

Later we moved to the front of the school where they have two full size bronze moose, a baby moose and a mommy moose. Bentley refused to be anywhere near them. I tried to show him that they were just metal, but he was adamant that they keep their distance from him. Fine.

I next tried sitting Jackson on the baby moose, but he clung to me like a leech. I had to settle for a photo of him sitting on a rock in front of the moose.


Genevieve came through for me. She was a champion moose rider and posed quite nicely. Unfortunately, the photographer was not as dedicated as she was. Isn't that the way it always is? If the model is in the groove, the camera guy is having technical difficulties. Sheesh!



Next I tried for a few photos on a nice big rock in front of some blooming Sitka roses.




The photos are nice, but I'd like to go back another day and try for big smiles. Again you will notice that my elder grandson is not present in any photos. He refused to pose for the camera.

Here's an action shot of him running down a hill. He sure is a cutie!