The travelling twins!

The last few weekends have been action-packed...We spent the weekend of the big blizzard up in Keystone with mimi and papa. We had planned to go up Friday but due to I-70 being closed we had to wait until Saturday to go up. Papa and James made a fire in the fireplace and we popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate the new condo!

Papa, James and I went skiing at A-Basin on Sunday but I gave up after a few hours...the runs were short and the lift lines were long on my side of the mountain. Papa and James had a blast going over to the back side to do some really hard blues and even a black diamond! They went over cornices and did a few jumps. They looked pretty beat up at the end but they say it was fun. We had such a good time up there it was really hard to come back home :( Last ski weekend of the year for us.

Last weekend Mimi, Papa and I took the girls to Butte MT to visit everybody. They got to spend time with their great-grandparents and lots of other relatives. So much fun to see Great-Gramma, Great-Grammy, both Great-Papa's, Geri, Wendy, Janet, Jim, Cameron, Adam, Serena, Winky, Carol, Ed, JoAnne, Brian, Erin and Brady. Seems like we never get to spend enough time visiting with everyone. Poor Papa was the only man staying at Gramma's house with no less than SEVEN girls! He was a trooper though, and hung in there with a smile on his face most of the time :) The girls missed their daddy VERY much and were attached to Papa like glue the whole time. There were several instances where he couldn't even set them down because they only wanted him to hold them...it was very cute.

We really missed having Great-Papa Otto with us at the house. He was in the hospital while we were there recovering from the first of two back surgeries. It just wasn't the same without him - we love you and miss you great-Papa and are praying for a quick recovery. All of us here in Colorado are thinking of you and wish we could be there with you, we are sending lots of love and prayers your way.

The girls did great on the flight to Bozeman and we even got a few pictures of them having a good time on the plane...

Shortly after arriving we noticed Sophia was not acting herself and putting her fingers in her ears. After a quick visit to urgent care she was diagnosed with her first ear infection and given some amoxicillin for 10 days. They both did okay on the flight home, but I was on edge the whole time hoping that the ear infection pain wouldn't cause any pain for her. Even though travelling was stressful for mommy it was well worth it to spend time with everyone, hopefully we will be back again very soon....

While we were gone James stayed in Denver to supervise our house/construction zone while it got painted and a new fence and continuing pergola construction. He was also happy to be able to spend time with his family for Tylers second birthday party.

Well, now I am off to figure out what kind of food to have at the girls 1st birthday party next weekend. Then it's time to start planning for our next big adventure - next stop - Molokai in June!!

Sundresses

It still hasn't been warm enough for them to wear these dresses outside yet...but I couldn't stand to wait any longer - they had an inside photo session today :)

Sophias first haircut

Sophia had her first haircut today! Here is the "before" picture:

During the haircut there was one person cutting her hair, one person (proud daddy James) holding her, and two people distracting her! She had quite an experience getting dolled up at the beauty parlor :)

Almost done - she looks so cute now with her adorable haircut!
While we were there Isabella got her second haircut as well - she did so good

Afterwards we took the girls to Lowes to get some more stuff for the pergola...they looked so cute and they were having a blast (good thing I still had the camera with me!)

Then they had burritos for the first time tonight - clearly Sophia loved it!

Isabella told us a very dramatic story after dinner :)
It was so much fun for me being home with them this week, we went for walks, played in the park, went on a playdate with the neighbor girl who is only 6 weeks younger than the girls, and spent lots of time bonding. We are really looking forward to spending this weekend with them in keystone, and then me and the girls will be flying out to Butte with mimi and papa next week! Watch out great-grandparents - here we come!!

Easter Bunnies

Our little Easter Bunnies - all dressed up so beautiful!

Sophia's shoes on the left are new, and Isabella's shoes on the right were mine when I was a baby. They are still very beautiful and they fit her perfect!

These dresses are so special because I remember when mimi gave them to me at my baby shower last year, and the thought of having the little babies in my belly being big enough to wear these dresses made me start crying - right there in front of everybody!

The girls looked so sweet in their Easter bonnets from Great-Grammy!

They had fun pulling eggs out of their easter baskets, their baskets were mine and my brothers when we were growing up

Isabella was really, really having fun!

Easter Brunch

Bradley and Jolene hosted Easter brunch again this year - we always have such a good time! Little Andrew was so adorable and getting to be so big!
Getting the girls bundled up for their first easter egg hunt - we waited until it got really cold and rainy before we started :)

You would never believe it looking at this picture but their was only 4 kids (including the girls) hunting for easter eggs, and at least three times that many adults filming them!

I love this picture of me and my Sophie Bear

And Finally......Keystone condo pictures!!!!!!

Mimi and Papa finally closed on their Keystone condo this last week, now it's time to let the good times roll!!! We are all so excited to be able to spend weekends up there with them riding mountain bikes and skiing! Their condo is in the pine trees literally right next to the bike trail and creek. Not to mention less than half a mile from the ski lift! Such a beautiful complex...
They are starting a complete remodel in the next few weeks, it is going to look amazing! You can see the big wooden beam in this picture and also the stairs going up to the loft. The kitchen is to the right.

This is the loft bedroom (where all of the kids will be sleeping!)

And this is the view from up in the loft.

Congratulations mom and dad!!! Your new home is AMAZING!!

Happy Birthday Joseph!

We had fun at Josephs 3rd birthday party on March 29th. Jolene always makes Joseph the cutest cakes! This year he had a monkey cake...

The girls had a great time playing with their friend Molly, here they are on Josephs Towmater truck

Opening presents got to quite chaotic with so many little kids "helping" Joseph!

Blowing out the birthday candles - Happy Birthday Joseph!!!

We didn't get any good pictures of Andrew that day - He was just hanging out and being the best baby ever that day, not a peep or a cry from him! Such a cutie pie.

Snow Day

The end of March we had a huge spring blizzard...what better excuse for spending the day in the warm house watching movies and playing with the girls! Here is what our back yard looked like around noon...

Of course I was pretty depressed knowing that I had to work the next few days and could not be able to go skiing on 2 feet of fresh powder :( Mimi and Papa saved the day when they decided to take me up with them on Tuesday the following week - the snow was AMAZING! I did fantastic(even though it was well below zero with the wind chill, brrrrrrr) and spent most the time on blue runs, keeping up with my parents the whole time! WhooHoo! I am so addicted to skiing!

Anyway, back to the snow day :) We got some cute pictures of the girls during meal time. They have dropped another bottle, so now we are down to 3 bottles a day and eating 3 meals as well. It's not looking like they are going to be ready to stop the bottle completely at 12 months so we will probably let them keep it until 18 months or so. They are doing great with meals, eating all kinds of solid foods.

Isabella keeps us laughing with her funny facial expressions in the highchair - she is such a ham!

Sophia gobbles up almost anything we give her - she loves to eat big girl food!

11 months

Hard to believe the girls are only one month away from officially being toddlers - wow! They are both growing up so fast lately it is hard to keep track of the milestones these days... They are both saying Mama and Dada and lots of other cute baby babbles. They are eating solid foods pretty well now, whatever we are eating or have around the house they will eat as well. Mostly lots of fresh fruits and cheerios (they are so addicted to cheerios!) Sophia eats really good, she gobbles everything up that we put in front of her and even keeps extra in her cheeks for later! Isabella is trickier to feed, she learned how to shake her head "no" and she can bat away the spoon, but she is getting better and she does great with foods she likes.

Bath time around here is becoming quite chaotic as well, we are trying to teach them that they have to stay sitting in the tub. Usually there is only one of us and it is way too hard for one person to try and keep two wiggle worms safely in the tub when they are crawling around and trying to stand up and falling backwards and dunking their heads under water to try and drink the water (what is that all about!?!)... They are getting better the last few nights, starting to understand what "no" means!

Isabella loves to clap her hands, giggle (constantly) and bang or throw her toys around - yikes! She also loves to fake cough - it cracks her up when we cough and she copies us. She is finally starting to roll all over the floor to get places, and she can go from sitting to lying down fairly easily. She can also scooch backwards. I think she is very close to crawling now that she is always wondering where her sister went :) She has 4 teeth (both front teeth top and bottom) and is getting very close to needing her second haircut. She is becoming very attached to her little dolly and likes to bring her everywhere she goes - so cute.

Sophia is very good at crawling now and she pulls herself up and walks along the furniture as well. She is mostly interested in exploring everything, including cabinets, dog food, stairs and outlets, therefore we had to baby-proof our house over the last few weeks. She is pretty brave trying to get around the house so she is falling down quite often and calling for mama or dada - it is very cute! Sophia has 9 teeth already! Four front teeth top and bottom and we just noticed a molar yesterday. She is almost ready for her first haircut as well.