bedtime rituals

The twins are acutally very good at going down at night. We feed them their solids, then give them a bottle and then it's baths and bed (although to be honest here...we do not bathe them every night) The whole process takes about an hour and a half, but they are very good and Felix and I are getting to be like a well oiled machine.

1. I do the solids while he cleans up from dinner and makes the bottles.
2.We each do a bottle
3. I get the bath ready while he is stripping down one of them-usually whoever seems most tired.
4. I bathe one, hand off to Felix who does diaper, lotion and pjs, while I am changing the water in the baby bathtub and stripping down the other one.
5. I bathe the second one while he brings the first one up to the nursery.
6. I dress the second one and bring him/her up to the nursery where Felix already has the lights dimmed and the lullabies (in Spanish!) playing
7. Felix rinses out and puts away the bathtub and washes the bottles while I wipe down the highchairs.
8. Whew! Relax and have a beer!

Funny thing is, we never decided "Ok, you do this, I'll do that".. I guess with two you just figure it out and get into a rythm.

Liliana always sleeps on her stomach. Always. And she always likes to have one hand holding on to the mattress as she is doing in this picture...sorry it is so dark, but I didn't want to use the flash while they were out.



Lucas is usally a back sleeper. He was really tuckered out tonight and his eyes closed almost instantly as he hit the bed. When did he get so big?!



Nothing beats watching them sleep...nothing.

This past week was my first week back at work since Dec 08. It was interesting getting into a routine (we were void of one all summer) but the twins-and Felix and I for that matter-did great. During the week the twins will be going to their sitter's house. Her name is Andrea. We will try and get a pic of her up here sometime soon...

Early morning..time to get up and eat your breakfast. Liliana looking half asleep.



Just playing around after coming home from Andrea's.

On Saturday, we got an impromtu visit from the Seltzer-Nose family. We all went to Stew Leonards and enjoyed lunch together. Thanks for coming guys!

This is one of their sons-Rei...cute little one isn't he?

On Sunday, after church, the sky turned blue and the sun came out. But instead of taking them out we just let them play outside on the patio. The twins turned 7 months today! Happy birthday kiddos!

Sometimes they look at what the other is doing and try to figure out who has the best deal.

Liliana hitting a dead end into the whiskey barrel full of impatiens.

And at the end of the day, there's no place better than resting on top of Papi!

Vern comes to visit!

This weekend Felix was away at his Fantasy Football Draft guys weekend. On Saturday, Vern came down from Boston for a visit. Of course, her real name is not Vern, it's Neha...but we have been calling her Vern since we were 19 (long story..) Anyway, I had been in the house all day and so we decided to go to the store to buy some stuff for dinner and for our trip to the beach the next day.

Lucas hanging out in the bread aisle...



Liliana and Vern...yes I DO take my camera everywhere, and yes we did get some strange looks while we were taking pictures..oh well.



Vern and I made pizza that night..my first homemade pizza..I have a whole new respect for those pizza twirlers who get their pizzas totally round. Completely impossible for me.



The next day started out with rain, but they said it was going to clear up, so we drove to the island beach ferry and hoped for the best. Walking to the boat in the rain, we hoped it would get better.
The twins hanging out..



Ahhh..that breeze feels good!

Vern helping out at feeding time...

We had our own private little inlet (one other family came later). It turned out to be a nice day..you can see the blue sky breaking in the background. The sun came out, we went swimming, and it was a great day.

All tuckered out...got my thumb and my giraffe...don't need much more!

Thanks for coming Vern-O! And here's to many more beach days next summer!

hanging around the house

the other day Felix found a very creative way to keep the twins from crying...

and here's a short clip of Liliana enjoying the new car...

Felix's Big Race

With all the excitement surrounding our photo shoot yesterday I forgot to put up the pics from the day before. On Saturday Felix competed in an 11 mile race. This is in preparation for a half marathon he will be doing next month.

Felix pre-race...

The starting line...I think the gun had gone off at this point and they were heading our way..don't know what that guy is doing in the middle...

At the half way point. Felix is the only one who I know that looks this happy after running 5.5 miles

Felix did a great job...he was hoping to get to the line at about 2 hours..and if you look in the distance you can see the clock which says 1:40. Great job!

It was a hot day so we just layed around in the AC..Lucas eating everything he can get his hands on...even this cumbersome toy.

And in the afternoon, after the heat had gone down a bit, we all headed to the beach. We swam a bit, the twins took a little rest and then while Lucas was still sleeping, Liliana tried out the swing..and loved it obviously. Great day all around!

Picture Day!

Felix and I took the kids to Sears today to have their formal pictures taken. I was hesitant about this. After all, we have SO many pics of the kids as it is...do we really need to PAY to have more? But it was worth it...a hundred times over. The woman who took the pictures was a total pro..we didn't help get their attention at all..and most times we were out of sight during the shot. The twins were in a great mood and all smiles today. These memories are priceless! So glad we have them forever! Enjoy!

Cultured kids and a new toy!

Thank goodness for Felix. If were just me, these kids would be beach bums and that's it. But Felix loves to go to museums and see all sorts of exhibits. We went to the Bruce Museum in Greenwich today (haven't been there since my high school reunion-shot out to you Aikes!) Anyway, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but I sneaked this one with Felix's phone. This was in the photography exhibit..some of which were donated by George Stephanopolous (We are big fans of George !)


Afterwards, we dragged the kids to Best Buy to look at cameras since ours died on our road trip. They were so good throughout all of this, we went to Toys R Us afterwards and just looked around. We are probably quickly running short of time where we can just "look" with them. Again, they were so good, we thought we would buy them a toy. We really haven't bought them any toys....almost all of theirs have been handed down to us or bought second hand.

We originally were looking at this walker, but it wouldn't go any higher and we thought the twins would outgrow it too quickly. Liliana sure did like it though.



So then we found this, it is like a walker but in Jeep form. Since they were with us, we let both of them try it out.

Success all around and so we were sold and it sits in our living room this evening!

Milestones and Sweet Potatoes

As promised, milestones of both twins will be documented here...not just the first to do so. Lucas actually started rolling over while we were on the road, in TN as a matter of fact. But it has been hard to get it on camera. You put him down and two seconds later he is over. He waited a while to do it, but he caught on real quick..so here it is..finally got it on tape..

And now comes feeding time. The twins have started eating solids. Carrots, sweet potatoes, applesauce and bananas for now. Lucas took to it right away. Mouth wide open, lunging for the spoon..the whole bit. Liliana hated it. She would gag if you put anything into her mouth and soon learned how to purse her lips shut and cry when the spoon came near her. Well, this morning, for some reason unbeknownst to us, she decided that she wanted to eat. Not only that, but she wanted the spoon as well. Here's a pic of Liliana and a quick clip of both of them at lunch today.

Beach Day!

Last Tuesday when the Nashville Sullivans were in town a bunch of us went to the beach. This is my first attempt to put pictures to music...hope you have audio on your computer! Enjoy..

More Twins!

Yesterday I went to visit my friend Taryn and her twins. Taryn and I teach at the same school and she had her twins this past July. She had a girl (Ava) and a boy (Enzo) just like us! This was the first time I had a chance to see them. No doubt next summer both sets of our twins will be running around and playing together.

Here's Enzo.....


And Ava...



I made these quilts a while ago for Taryn's twins, but couldn't post the pics since they were a surprise for the babies. Taryn was due in July, so I was trying like mad to finish them in May, thinking that her twins would come early like ours...nope. Taryn made it to full term. What a trooper. The twins were born nice and big and healthy and spent no time in the hospital. Way to go Taryn!

This one is for Ava...

And this one is for Enzo...

It was so great to see the twins. Already I had forgotten just how small they can be. They were absolutely precious and quite the little cuddlebugs! Thanks for a great afternoon Taryn!