Teddy

Teddy passed away this morning at 8AM. He was just shy of 9 years old.

We brought him to the vet early yesterday morning for surgery to take out a fatty tumor (he had the same surgery 2 years ago). He was doing fine last night, but this morning went into cardiac arrest while still at the animal hospital.

Late this morning, we visited Teddy to say our goodbyes. We will miss him dearly.

Oh Christmas Tree...

 Stella and Lucy getting ready to go to the North Pole on Wednesday!

Even though we are headed back to Minnesota for Christmas- I still wanted to put up a tree!
And as much as we would have loved to get a real Christmas tree, we decided that we should stick with our old artificial one to minimize the watering and needle-cleanup etc.

So last week, we empty out our entire closet to get down into the basement (which is what we have to do any time we need to get down there to get/do anything: storage, check the water heater, change the furnace filter, and oh, I don't know, scoop up water?). Anyway... we go down to retrieve the Christmas stuff and we find everything; everything but the top of the 3-piece tree. For the last several years we have used the artificial tree, but we only use the middle and top portion- since the bottom portion is too big for the typical Baltimore row home. We did have leaking down there this year, so we moved things around a bit; we looked and we looked (and the basement is not that big) with no luck. So we tried other spots in the house in which it may have migrated... no luck.

We did not find the top of the tree. However, I did find my mini Christmas tree that I bought in 6th grade at Walgreens. So... utilizing some wishful thinking and tinkering (along with duct tape and some bamboo skewers)- I attached the mini tree to the top of the middle portion... and then we decorated! Needless to say, it does not look great, but it does keep us laughing!

Guten Tag!

As it turns out, Lucy's first language is German.. just like 'mein Vater' (my father)!

Say Say Oh Playmate...won't you come play with me

Everyone always asks me how I "do it" with twins; they say that they know how it is with one baby... but two???   I hear all about "double trouble" and "you have your hands full" and the "god bless you, I know I couldn't do it!". When I was pregnant people would tell me that it would be hard at first, but over time it would get easier.

So first of all, I disagree with the "hard at first but then gets easier" statement. For the first few months, even though there were challenges no doubt, all the girls really did was eat, sleep, and poop- what's so hard about that? At least not hard compared to later months; especially the months when they became mobile:)

Gone are the days when you could just plop them down and they wouldn't (couldn't) wander; they do tend to run in different directions whenever possible which does make things a bit challenging. Gone are also the days that they were unaware of each other.

Now that they are very aware of each other, we have the fighting over who plays with what toy, who reads what book, who gets carried, who sits in who's lap. We have the hair-pulling and the biting. We have the ear-tugging and the nose-pulling. We have the pushing, shoving, yelling, screaming, pouting, and over-the-head toy bopping.

On the other hand, we have the snack-sharing and back-rubbing; we have the laughter and the mimicking. We  have the shrieks of delight and jabbering. We have the smiling, tickling, giggling, consoling, and forever playmate... we have twins!

So while people are constantly reminding me of how hard it must be or is 'supposed ' to be. I just say: First, I don't know anything different, and second, now, I think we may actually have it easier than those folks with just one... because they have a consistent playmate and friend to keep them occupied!, The one exception of course is that they also have a partner in crime:)

Beauties and the Beasts

We spent Thanksgiving weekend in sunny Baltimore. We had quite the feast for our little family unit. Tonight was actually the first night that we did not have leftovers! I already miss the wild rice casserole that has been a staple in our family thanksgivings for as long as I can remember.

The first beast: This was the first time I have attempted to make an entire Turkey and it was exciting, nerve-racking , and a bit gross.

The whopping 9.9 pounder fit nicely in our mini fridge.

 So I made the glaze and officially bought the Turkey... 

but I just couldn't take out the innards myself- so Dave came in very handy.

After only 2 hours-It came out perfect!

The other beasts:
We went to the Maryland zoo for the first time (and the first time our little beauties have been to any zoo) on Saturday.

Checking out the giraffes and the cheetah

After taking a close look at the leopard we realized that our "Cheetah Lounge" 

should actually be the "Leopard Lounge"!

The lion came right up to the window to take a closer look.

The Maryland Zoo is really a city zoo and was only a few minutes away from our house. You would never have guessed we were in Baltimore proper once we got in however- it was really spacious and the habitats were quite nice. Next stop- the National Zoo in DC!

Thank goodness for Rotten Eggs

This morning just before 7AM I awoke to a lovely smell of rotten eggs. Was it Dave attempting to cook me breakfast? Did Teddy get into the trash? No and no. It was the rotten egg smell that is added to natural gas; it was strong. I went downstairs to find that one of the knobs on the stove was turned and had been that way all night. I look up the emergency gas leak number and call right away Was I going to have to take the girls out of the house.. in the rain? Luckily we were just instructed to open all the windows and doors that we could and not turn anything on or off for 1 hour. So if a light was on.. leave it on. No microwaving, no coffee making, no breakfast scrambling. While the emergency tech said there was no need to wake up the kids.. .we did, and we opened the window in their room to let the nice cold morning (and egg-free) breeze inside. Eventually we went back to sleep for a bit and woke to a fresh, albeit chilly, surrounding.

On another not so thankful note: when I brought the girls upstairs for their nap this afternoon I set Lucy down in the nursery and she slipped... in the water. The water that was on the floor. The water that was dripping from our roof. The same roof that we just paid a lot of $$ to have replaced. The roofers will be here bright and early in the morning to fix it!

Foot In Mouth.... & Spoon and Face

Foot in Mouth: So lately I have been speaking a lot of 'baby talk' in public without realizing it... and it's only sometimes that my children are actually with me. "Mommy wants coffee.. mmmm; and I wonder, where are the bananananananas?"

Spoon in Mouth: I have been working on getting the girls to use spoons We have tried a few times, some more successful than others. They love eating with the spoon, its just hard to scoop up what they want.

Face in Mouth: I caught the end of Stella biting Lucy in the cheek. There was screaming, but then an abrupt smile when Lucy realized she still had the sippy cup in question. On the other hand, maybe she was just posing for the camera!