We're Idaho-Bound!

I couldn't be more excited--we are packing up our little family and heading to Idaho for Christmas. My head is spinning from all of the planning and packing--we leave tomorrow, and I can't wait to get there and spend the holidays with my family! Fingers crossed that we survive the flight with these two little munchkins (Daniel is really not looking forward to the long plane ride with our children)...

More Christmas Trains!

This past weekend, we decided to venture down to the National Harbor to have lunch, see the Christmas decorations at the gigantic Gaylord hotel, and check out the Christmas train (and Olivia came with us, yay!). Unfortunately, Santa wasn't there--but we did get to ride the train (which was ridiculously small, but the babies had fun).

Farewell, Mary!

(As much as I don't like to think about it or admit it...) The babies will likely have a series of caregivers throughout their childhood--and their first just left. Mary has been with us through the past year, and babies, how she loved you! She's moving onto different things--our new nanny Whitney will be here at the first of next year--and I'm really excited to get to spend the next two weeks at home (and in Idaho) with Addison and Jackson. I really, really love the time we get to spend together!

Anyway, Mary wrote the following post on her blog about you guys, and I wanted you to see what she had to say about her year with you and her observations on your personalities from the time she spent with you (and you'll see from reading this--you guys charm almost everyone you meet!):

I got into D.C. on January 1st of this year when the babies were about to turn four months old. And now they are going on 16 months in a couple of weeks! I have spent thousands of hours and hundreds of days with them as they changed and grew this year. I'm not sure how many diapers I've changed this year... but it was a high number! I've been through colds and diaper rashes and teething with them. I've been on a few plane rides with them. What a year! I've heard the first year of a child's life has the most drastic changes. Here's what the twins looked like when I first met them.

(They were blobs of fat! Haha! Love the scared expressions on their faces.)

Here's what they look like today:

Jackson

Addison

I saw them both reach a lot of milestones and I felt just as proud as their parents when they learned or did something new. They learned to sit up, roll over, crawl, walk, and use sign language while I was here. They can climb up the stairs (working on going down) and they both love to dance and sing. Personality wise, they are pretty different.

Addison is: mischievous, always running before looking, not afraid to take control, loves to wave to strangers and give hugs and kisses to people she doesn't even know. Has a killer fake laugh and a cute real laugh. Has the biggest bluest eyes that strangers always comment on. Really good at signing and saying words.

Jackson is: sweet, likes to take time to smell the roses, he will explore things slowly and is interested by a lot of different things, whereas his sister runs ahead to check out the situation. Sensitive, smiley, ticklish, likes to give hugs, easygoing, determined when he sets his mind to something. LOVES to dance and "talk" on the phone.

Today is my last day working as a nanny for them. It's bittersweet. I'm ready to move on to the next phase of my life but it's sad at the same time. It's sad that they will not remember me or all the time I spent with them. But hopefully the things I did and the way I loved them will make a difference somehow.

I LOVE YOU JACKSON AND ADDISON!!!! (Yeah, tearing up right now....)

Christmas Trains!

Yesterday, we took the babies to the Botanic Gardens to see their Christmas train display. The kids love trains, and were signing TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN like maniacs the entire time we were there.




After walking through the display, we ran around out on the lawn in front of the Capitol. It was pretty chilly, but the babies had fun--and you can't beat the view.

15 month check up

Addison
head circumference: 17.75 inches (26%)
height: 31.5 inches (80%)
weight: 21 lb 12 oz (32%)

Tall and skinny--just like her mom?

Jackson
head circumference: 18.5 inches (44%)
height: 31 inches (45%)
weight: 23 lb 4 oz (31%)

Poor Jackson has been scratching his ear more than normal lately (he's always been an ear scratcher/puller, especially when he gets tired), so I mentioned it to the doctor to see if something was up. When she checked his ears out, she saw that he had some fluid behind his right ear drum--the poor baby had an ear infection! It was a good thing that we happened to have a doctor's appointment that day--except for one unusual crying episode that morning, I wouldn't have known anything was wrong. It would have had to get worse before we'd have headed to the doc, so I'm glad we were able to catch it early and get him on some antibiotics and back to feeling better!

A Weekend with the Satterlee Ladies

Aunt Casey, Aunt Kelly, and Nana Candy came to visit last weekend (and while Dad was out of town for work, Nana Candy stayed much of the week to help with the babies). We had one more weekend of beautiful, unseasonably warm weather. So we went on a lot of walks and played outside a whole bunch--in fact, the babies walked all of the way to the park, played for a while, and walked all of the way home. They are getting to be such big kids!

Here are the babies playing out front. Both Jackson and Addison are quite the little soccer players--both are really good at running and kicking the ball.







We tried again to get a good family picture for Christmas cards--we ended up with a couple of good shots, and lots of funny pics.



When we're playing out front, Addison has taken to hightailing it to the front door and sitting down squarely on our Christmas rug. She must be digging the festive, bright red snowman rug!

A good picture of Jackson and Aunt Casey.


And a good picture of Daniel and Casey.

Long Thanksgiving Weekend

What an awesome time we've had these past four days. It has been so nice to be home with the babies and Daniel, to have nice weather so we could play outside everyday, and to eat Thanksgiving leftovers until we were afraid we might turn into turkeys ourselves (might be too late for the little ones).



On Saturday afternoon, Olivia came over to play. Before we ventured to Eastern Market, we tried to take a family picture (we need a good, current pic for Christmas cards!)--what a comedy of errors trying to get a good picture of all of us with these two wiggly, silly babies!



Note the hair bow though...score one for mom. Winning small battles, though still losing that war.

Rest assured, we got one or two that will hopefully work...and thanks to our beautiful photographer Olivia, who we loved spending the afternoon with!