2012 Holidays

Back in Munich after celebrating Christmas 2012 at Oma and Opa's oasis in Heidelberg.  We ate like royalty and were spoiled like brats.  Seeing my parents show their love for my kids is one of my favorite things ever.  The way Elise leans away from my chest as I hold her and softly puts her arms around Oma while smiling so sweetly when it's time to say good night.....Paul walking towards Opa's voice whenever he hears it and slightly cocking his head and looking at him at an angle and a sly smile....Paul saying "mmmmmma" which I think is him trying to say Oma.....Opa presenting Lily's new bike from Christkind with such enthusiasm and energy (see video in attached link) that it makes me just stop and remember how much I love my Dad.....Oma thinking about my kids so much that it comes through in all the perfect gifts she finds for them, the new food she wants to make just to see if they would like it makes me stop and remember how lucky I was when I was a kid and not realizing enough at the time how good I had it.  

I'm more emotional than usual these days.  I'm super excited for my newly engaged sister that I get giddy at times thinking about how happy she is.  I'm so proud of how far we've come as a family, but bummed that "easy" things like getting out of the house as a family, turning off kids mode and turning on relationship mode with Nate, and not letting the small challenges of the day drain me so much....can be so hard. I'm nervous about Elise's first surgery in 2013.  I'm excited and scared of being mom to 1 year old twins and a very independent minded 3 year old.  My breastfeeding career is now over and it's bitter sweet..... a bit more on the sweeter side.

Here are pics from our festive December.  Prost.

December 2012

Two x One Year = Party Time

Wow, that was fast.  Somehow a year has whizzed by since Paul and Elise made their exciting entrance into the world.  That night and morning at the hospital is burned into my memory, with Elise making a relatively easy entrance and Paul deciding he just didn't want to come out yet so he had to get yanked feet first.  Only when he was about nine months old did our pediatrician ask if we knew that his collarbone had been broken.  Nope, but it must've happened on his way out.  And now we have two vocal, energetic, on-the-go one year olds.  That could be read as whiny and fussy, but also as happy and playful.  We get our doses of both, try to forget the former and remember the latter. 

We threw a party at our place for the big occasion on Friday and of course afterwards found out that we made a faux pas by celebrating before the actual birthday.  Oh well, it was a fun party and the babies got to enjoy their first cupcake.  In true non-identical twin form, Paul was interested in his cupcake right away while Elise turned up her nose, then Paul's interest quickly faded while Elise was re-energized and ate or crumbled away all of hers. 

We invited everyone we thought was a big help during the first year.  We really needed help and got lots of it, so between babysitters, friends, and Oma & Opa, hopefully everyone was feeling our gratitude.  Oma and Opa were also a huge help with the party itself, between helping with the baking and cooking and shopping and clean-up, they made it about ten times easier on us than otherwise. 

Even since the last blog post things are changing fast.  Paul is a full-time walker now, toddling wherever he wants to go and gaining confidence every day.  Elise is still crawling like she's in a race, but is also finally enjoying pushing the push walker around the apartment.  Actually, reminiscent of Lily she enjoys it until she runs into something, at which point she gets really upset.  Both of them are "talking" more, with Paul saying "dat" for pretty much everything while today I caught Elise talking calmly on her new toy phone, and when she saw me she tilted her head and gave a shy smile.

I'm sure their second year will be full of new challenges but lots of cool changes too, I can't even imagine what I'll be writing about a year from now.

On the full family front, my two months of work travel from Turkey to Mallorca to Darmstadt to Ulm to Helsinki to Stockholm to Dublin to Nuremberg  is complete, with one last day trip to Nuremberg this week (only an hour away on the fast (175 mph) train) before taking the last two weeks of the year as vacation.  Lily enjoyed St. Nikolaus visiting school and church, and she's telling more and more stories like how she learned how to drive a real car at school the other day.  And Nicole is looking forward to weaning and the additional bit of freedom that brings which I'm sure will mean more tennis and get togethers with friends new and old. 

Gratitude

I don't find it hard to be grateful for so much on a daily basis.  We do a gratitude prayer at dinner, I subscribe to a couple gratitude themed blogs, and I keep a journal.  Gosh, I'm starting to plan Paul and Elise's first Birthday party and the theme is gratitude; we've invited the people that have helped us get through year 1.  I guess I had hoped gratitude would help fuel my drive to do more things I like to do.  Whether it's picking up a book more often that I can learn something from, leaving the house more at night, calling friends and family back in the states more to connect, working out more like I used to once upon a time, or planning a date with my husband.  I'm too fried and exhausted or just not making the time to fit more into my days right now.  I know how to seize the heck out of a good moment but I'm not as good at letting the frustrating and draining moments of my days roll off my back.  They get to me and I wish I didn't depend on quiet evenings and sleep so much to help me bounce back.

Here are a couple moments from the weekend that gave me so much joy.  Paul is officially a walker and already showing soccer skills.  Elise prefers to crawl even though she is trying quite a bit to walk.  It's harder for her to get the hang of her much heavier right foot.

 
This one is primarily for Opa but thought others would enjoy too.

Rockin' the ABC's and Steps!

Wanted to share a couple fun videos from tonight.  This past Sunday, Paul and Elise both took a couple first tentative steps on the same day, what are the chances? It's not the taking of the steps as much as the look on their faces that makes me so incredibly full of joy.  It happened on 11/11 at 11 months old.  That will be easy for me to remember.  I guess they are pretty excited about their development because some dance moves recently popped up too.

Here they are lightly rockin' out to the ABC song.  Paul seems to show more interest right now practicing his walking abilities.  I caught him doing this tonight too.  Sorry you missed it in person Nate.  Celebrate with an extra Guinness tonight.

Bwahbwahbwah

Our house is loud, oh so loud, full of motion, and busy making a mess.  I spend my days on the floor;  chairs are for meals and guests now.  I am always covered in snot and dirt from being a human jungle gym or a shoulder to rest or cry on.  I wear the same sweatshirt every morning and night and only change if I really need to.  I shower every 3rd day and wear no make up, only lotion.  If I get most of my hair in a ponytail in the morning, I'm good to leave the house.  It sounds bad and so unattractive, I know.  Don't worry, I'm not going to extremes letting my armpit hair grow and growing dreadlocks.  I would just say I'm doing the minimum and I don't mind at all; I like it.  I don't feel ugly being this way; I've never been one to get dolled up and that's fine with me.

Here are some pics from the last couple weeks, random happenings in the Mather house.  I also posted one video of Elise's latest milestone.  Lily is busy speaking German noticeably more now - when she plays alone with her dolls, she only speaks German now.  Paul is busy giving high fives and making that silly sound where you move your finger back forth across your lips to make a funny sound - something like - bwahbwahbwah.  Elise is busy standing and clapping.  She also loves to cuddle, makes up for her before 6 am wake ups the last couple weeks!  Actually, I take that back, doesn't really make up for it.

Lily getting better at the blow dryer.

 Silly Lilly

 Push me Momma

 In and out of baskets.

 Check out Elise's position, cracks me up.  Feet first Elise.

Playing along the Isar

 Playing in drawers

 Elise is still our especially smiley one

 Just a pretty shot

 Paul loves to walk

 Poor attempt at self family portrait

 Silly Elise

 LET ME OUT

5 Cheers For Health

Paul is back.  Illness sure has been kicking some butt in our family.  It's a reoccurring theme in our house that is just annoying.  Paul had it the worst and the longest with a long lasting double ear infection to the point that I was starting to believe Paul's temperament was whiny and sensitive.  Happy to report that Paul is back....to normal whininess levels.  :)  The stars collided and good health returned to all of us just in time for an amazing Indian summer weekend in Munich.  Besides the amazing weather, enjoying back to back family meals without having to pick up an inconsolable baby has been a dream come true.  Here's to hoping this is the beginning of a real groove for the Mather family.

Here are some recent videos of Paul and Elise and a couple silly pics of our Quatschkopf Lily.

Elise's hardcore head banging


Lily introduced this game and it stuck

Really starting to interact and having some fun together.

Family Snapshot

We've settled back into the "normal" routine as fall has arrived with Lily back in preschool and work is in full swing.  I'm heading off for Belek, Turkey this week for a training conference, so the craziness will be all in Nicole's hands (with the help of our trusty babysitter/mother's helper, of course).  Work travel will keep me on the go for a couple of days per week most weeks through mid-November, then things should taper off a bit, so hopefully Nicole won't have pulled out all her hair by then.  I know I would if roles were reversed... spending all day with the twins and Lily has a way of wearing down all my mental defenses and making me wish for bedtime to arrive ASAP.  So before my oddessy begins, here's a snapshot of what everyone is doing these days.

Paul (twins are 10 months old today) is in the midst of a couple of fun developments.  First is pushing things to walk.  He loves pushing the walker around, sometimes with one of his sisters in it.  And if that isn't in sight he'll go for chairs.  His latest game is to take each chair from the dining room table and push it until it hits something that stops it. So our dining room/dance floor room sometimes has six chairs at random edges of the room.  His other trick is throwing.  Everything.  We enjoy games of catch with just about anything.  The only down side to this is with food... Elise is doing great with finger foods these days but Paul just takes things from his tray and tosses them.  Paul is also a vampire these days, as he's added two lateral incisors on top to go with his central incisors on the bottom.  They've just broken through, so we'll see if you'll actually be able to see them before the central ones come in too.

Elise continues to be our smiley girl.  She and Lily enjoy just sitting and laughing at each other, and she likes to follow Lily around the house.  She is a quick crawler and is still in the "I want to taste everything" phase, so this afternoon I had to fish random paper out of her mouth while trying to avoid getting chomped.  Elise also likes to hang out in our shower stall for some reason, but can't figure out how to get out, so whenever she's tired of being there she just squawks and holds up her arms.  She was also testing her legs this evening, standing on her own with no hands for a few seconds at a time.  Elise and Paul are also starting to interact a bit more and follow each other around the apartment to see what trouble they can get into.

Lily is enjoying being a preschooler, even if her stories about what happened at school that day tend to defy belief ("I jumped out of the window today", "so and so flew into a tree and gave me an apple").  The girl has quite an imagination, and she can really get wrapped up in playing with her Barbies or Playmobil and rehash the recent scenes of her life.  She also likes to join in our grown up conversations, making sure everyone knows what's on her mind.  And she's been accompanying Nicole to her weekly tennis sessions lately and taking a few swings at the end of time.  She's got a nice looking swing but the hand-eye coordination will take some time. 

Nicole has been enjoying getting back into tennis and heading out for dinner with friends after the kids are all down, and I've been enjoying the continued good weather to get out to run and bike.  Of course most of our time is dedicated to our respective work, and I definitely feel like I have the easier job these days.  There's always something to do until the kids are down for the night, but at least we usually have a couple hours of me or us time in the evening to decompress. 

Here are some pics from the last couple of weeks.

The push walker is getting a lot of action these days.

Lily prefers showers these days but once in a while will want to jump in and join her siblings for bath time.

Empty beer bottle case and trash can really can be that much fun apparently.

Checked out a cool Kids fest at the German Chancellory on the Reunification Holiday. Lily getting her daily jumping fix in.

Paul will push anything and anyone.

A perk of Lily in Kindergarten is that the babies can easily play with Lily's toys.

Paul's expression is priceless.

 It's so nice when the babies can entertain themselves on the floor while cooking.  So worth the mess.