Thanksgiving: Christmas

Since we are on an alternating holiday schedule with our families, we decided to do Christmas while we were all together. It was great! It is so much more fun to see presents getting opened - and I had half my shopping done before Thanksgiving, which is way early for me.

Always fun to rip into presents!

They were enamored with these little light-up snowman ornaments - of course the best thing costs the least!

The best shot of the four cousins

Thanksgiving: Family

We went to the park one day - but it was very cold! Pappa Art is holding Audrey and Brooke is riding with Baby Paul.

Since this was our first Thanksgiving without Darren's mom, we did a little balloon release with notes attached for her before we ate.

Out for a walk after our delicious Thanksgiving meal.

The girls really enjoyed playing with their cousin Kayla. She is almost 6 and liked to mother the girls...which went over pretty well!

Eating Thanksgiving dinner.

A family portrait taken by Kayla

Darren's family are HUGE Auburn fans (note the abundance of orange in these pictures). We all enjoyed watching the Auburn/Alabama game. Thank heavens they won!

Eating a delicious breakfast of doughnuts from Uncle Paul

Thanksgiving: Birthdays

This year for Thanksgiving, we went to Darren's sister, Leslie's new house outside of Atlanta. First thing on the agenda was to celebrate the girls' birthday one more time. Leslie made strawberry cake which is a Hadden family favorite.

Here are the girls blowing out their candles - I was supposed to bring some and totally forgot, so we used what was available!

Opening presents! The girls got the American Girl Bitty Twins, clothes, and the diaper bag. These are great favorites - especially the diaper bag! The girls have subsequently been named Kate and Kayla (which has later been changed to Katie)

They got some PJs so that they could match their dolls! Kayla is showing off her AG doll as well.

Three Year Stats

We had our 3 year old check up today, which went very well. We love our pediatrician - who obviously LOVES kids. (As an aside, when we were getting our medical forms filled out for preschool he added comments like "adorable" onto the form where there is space for the doctor to write. Who wouldn't love that?)

The girls got one vaccination. Apparently they changed one of the vaccines from covering the top 7 pneumonia things to the top 13. So even though the girls were "through" with this series, they got the new model (version 2.0 so to speak.) They had been anticipating their shots and seemed like they were totally on board (no crying at all for the flu shot last month) but today as it turned out, they were NOT fans at all. Which then makes it a hard sell to go give blood for the cholesterol screening. That actually went well as it was just a finger prick. Unfortunately I just got a call that both of them were a little higher than they want to see, so we have to go back for a full lipid fasting panel in 6 months. How embarrassing...I am sure that they think all we feed them are chicken nuggets and fries...wait, we did have a snack from chick-fil-a just prior to our test. Hmmm.

The Dr. thought that it sounded like Audrey had a little murmur in her heart and since I have mitral valve prolapse, he wants her to go see a cardiologist. So we will schedule an appointment for that, though it does not sound serious at all.

Here are their stats:
Brooke: 38.5 inches tall - between 75th and 90th percentile
Audrey: 37 inches tall - right at 50th percentile

Brooke: 35 lbs 1 oz - right at 90th percentile
Audrey: 31 lbs 4 oz - right at 50th percentile

They are basically staying on the same growth chart that they have been on (though the height was actually measured standing up rather than laying down) and are very proportional with height and weight. They also got their blood pressure taken for the first time.

Birthday Party

On Saturday November 13, we had the girls' birthday party at the House of Bounce. It was a BLAST! I think that the parents had as much fun as the kids. The place had 3 inflatables - one was a typical bouncy thing, one was an obstacle course that ended in a slide, and one was just a slide. And it had a little couch area with coffee for the adults who were not on the inflatables. Then we had pizza and cake. My pictures are, for the most part, giant blurs. Here are some that are better than the rest!

They made them each a little sign where everyone could "write" their names and then they put a group picture in the middle.

The regular bouncy - which did have an area for jousting. Pictured are our friends the Envalls - Eric and Erica.


Brooke and Audrey running off the obstacle one. Their friend Ellie riding down the slide one with D. No lie, by the end of the party D had a giant RIP down the seat of his pants. Hee Hee!

Getting ready to sing Happy Birthday. (of course as it turns out Brooke wanted the pink cake and Audrey wanted the purple cake!)


Enjoying the food!

Trying to herd the kiddos to take a group picture.

Birthday Festivities

The girls decorated some cupcakes to bring to preschool for their birthday celebration on Thursday Nov. 10. We used a LOT of sprinkles to decorate those cupcakes!

Here is a picture of the girls at preschool for their birthday celebration. I thought they looked pretty cute in their bright pink pants and fun sweaters.

For their actual birthday, we went to a story time at Barnes and Noble followed by lunch with friends at Jason's deli....they love the muffins and ice cream. We put all the kids at one end of the table and the mom's at the other end which worked about as well as you would expect. Pictured are (L to R) Lorelei, Audrey, Olivia, Keira, Brooke, Elisa, and baby Ian. Not pictured are the other babies Katie, Collin, and Sloane. I am sure Jason's was thrilled with the mess that we left :)

We are THREE

Today is the girls' birthday and they are 3!! It seems unbelievable to me that they have been here for three years already, but then it also seems unbelievable to me that there ever was a time when they weren't here. And when I look at them now, they are clearly little girls and not even toddlers. I am so happy to be their mom and I am so proud of them as little people. Here are a few tidbits that I want to remember about them at this age:

• I LOVE to hear their thoughts and conversations. One of my favorite expressions that they use is "tippy." They will look for things at the "tippy bottom" or will go to the "tippy back" of the van. It is cute to see them applying that word from tippy top/toes. An example of a cute conversation was today when they were playing on the "playpark" in our backyard this is what they were discussing:

Brooke: "Audrey, how bout I slide with cow, then Audrey slide with cow, then "Booke" slide with cow, then Audrey slide with cow. How bout that, Audrey?
Audrey: "That sound like good plan Booke"

Brooke: "OK. I go first, then you second. Here I go." (Brooke likes to be in charge - which she gets from me - and she insists on repeating things over and over - which she gets from D)

• Audrey is so funny about getting attached to things. She finds something (like today it was her bath toy cow, which may explain the conversation above) and she gets ATTACHED in a crazy way immediately. Her intense attraction may last for a day or even up to a week, but then she finds something new (or different as there are some things that are in the rotation frequently)

• Brooke sings all the time - she loves to sing. Even if it is just the same word over and over and over. She also is quieter than Audrey and when trying to be really sweet, talks in this teeny tiny voice.
  

• They are still oddly fascinated with poop, boobs, and penises. I am sure it is a phase, but it is just hilarious. They love to watch anyone get their diaper changed, and frequently insist on playing a game where they change each others diaper (slightly embarrassing when they do this on the floor of the chick-fil-a playarea as there usually is a lot of wiping). I am sure that I am not helping the situation as I will let them actually help wipe each other after some poops (probably not gonna win mom of the year doing that - but it is SO funny). Currently they are feeding their babies (or Audrey's cow) on their boobs - and they like to lift their shirt to make sure that the baby is on the correct location. And they still like to talk about tinkling out of their "tend" penis. And will randomly discuss who does or does not have a penis (Wyatt and Pig do, Red and Princess Pea do not - from super why). Fortunately they do seem to be correct. Audrey composed a penis song and was singing it very loudly the other night at dinner. Again, I am sure it is just a phase....please let it be a phase.
  

• Their vocabulary is huge - though pronunciation is still an issue. The "w" sound accounts for a number of their letters and is added into some words (eg: instead of saying "see it" it comes out "see wit") though oddly enough they use a "f" when it is a "sw" word (sfing for swing). And ch and tr are still just a "k" sound. But finally they are pretty close on pronouncing Audrey's name (which is nice as people just looked at me blankly when they called her aussie) It is nice that they can use other words to explain what they are talking about when we can figure out a word. Unfortunately I have heard them say "O, dang it" a lot - clearly I say that a lot.
• As always, I am sure there are more things, but I just can't remember them now.
  

School Pictures

With our Halloween pictures, our school pictures, and our 3 year old pictures (which I will post on Friday), the girls have been well documented for these two months of their lives.

Trick or Treat

MMMMM....so many choices!

This is the girls with our neighbor, Baby Christian, who they LOVE to visit with!

Here is a little video of the girls in action (please ignore the fact that D is so loud and the girls so quite). They were very much into the whole concept of trick or treat this year. They were so excited to run to the next house, or as they quickly learned, to the next house with its light on. By the end of the evening, the girls were getting chauffeured around in their wagon to do their trick or treating.

Last Halloween Party

The day before Halloween we went to our friend Renee's house for a final Halloween party (I certainly got my money on those Old Navy costumes!). They always have great parties - as you can see by the bouncy house that they OWN! As I am perpetually behind, I will basically just post some pics:

The butterflies loved the bouncing...which is a good thing as their birthday party is coming up soon and is at a bounce place!


Making S'mores...not totally successful as I think I may have scared the girls with my warnings about staying AWAY from the fire. And shockingly they did not like the toasted marshmallow...I was forced to eat their unwanted s'mores.

Me and Audrey posing under the spider

The best group shot I got...this was hastily thrown together and there was a mad rush to get all the little ones (as I am the only one without an additional baby/tot) outside and the other shots with all the kids were bad of the girls and since this is my blog I am using the one where they look the best.